Copenhagen, one of the world’s most bicycle-friendly cities, has begun turning its extensive network of cycle paths into bike highways in an effort to push more commuters to leave their cars at home.
Considered one of Europe’s two “bicycle capitals” along with Amsterdam, Copenhagen has more bicycles than people and cycling is so popular that its numerous bike paths become congested.
Two-wheeler traffic jams are especially regular on the main Noerrebrogade thoroughfare used by about 36,000 cyclists a day.
PHOTO: AFP
“You have to elbow your way in to go forward and some cyclists aren’t always thoughtful,” 22-year-old university student Lea Bresell complained.
The creation of bike highways “comes right on time,” Danish Cyclist Federation spokesman Frits Bredal said. “Copenhagen’s roads are overloaded with people who want to ride their bicycles in all kinds of weather.”
If in the 1960s Danes viewed the car as the symbol of freedom, the bicycle has assumed that role today, Bredal said.
“It’s a mode of transportation used by all social classes, even politicians ride bikes,” he said.
It is on the crowded Noerrebrogade — the busiest bicycle street in Europe, according to the federation — that city planners have decided to build the first of Copenhagen’s environmentally friendly boulevards.
The jammed bike paths will be widened up to 4m on either side of the road, which will itself be reserved for buses only.
The idea is to make Noerrebrogade “Europe’s great cycling street,” said Andreas Roehl, Copenhagen’s bicycle program manager, who is also known as “Mister Bike.”
However, Roehl is not content with making life easier for Copenhagen’s inner-city cyclists, he wants to get suburbanites out of their cars and onto two wheels as well.
His goal is to increase the percentage of suburban commuters cycling to and from the city from the 37 percent it is today to more than 50 percent by 2015.
Within the city, 55 percent of all commuters already travel by bike.
Copenhagen’s bike highways of tomorrow will be dotted with pit stops where it will be possible to pump up tires, fix a chain and have a drink of water, Roehl said.
Synchronized traffic lights prioritizing bicycles over cars will bring riders from the suburbs into Copenhagen “quickly and safely,” he said.
That “could lead car-addicted suburbanites to take their bikes to go to Copenhagen,” said cyclist Bresell, for whom bike highways will “make life even more difficult for motorists and easier for cyclists.”
Already Copenhagen stands out among other European capitals for its cycling infrastructure, counting more than 390km of bike paths.
Between 2006 and this year, it spent 250 million kroner (US$44 million) in bike infrastructure and an extra 75 million kroner was allotted for next year.
The first two city-to-suburb bicycle highways are scheduled to open at the end of next year and reach a distance of 15km from central Copenhagen, while a third, going as far as 20km from the capital’s center, will be put into service in 2012.
While celebrating the Danish capital’s efforts, Bredal said he hoped the rest of the Scandinavian country, which altogether has 5.5 million inhabitants and about 4 million bikes, would soon “follow Copenhagen’s example.”
Denmark’s other main cities — Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg — are already contemplating similar bike highways, according to the head of the Copenhagen project, Maria Helledi Streuli, who is eager to sing the plan’s praises.
“It’s an initiative that is good for the environment, for health,” Streuli said, adding that it also “makes it possible to unclog car traffic and to breathe easier in the city.”
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