Copenhagen Bike City

Bicycles and Copenhagen have a very special relationship. Bicycles are a point-to-point, healthy and free transportation system and most people in Copenhagen ride them helping turn the city into a wonderful urban sustainability example.

(via Copenhagenize.com)

This beautiful little video highlights some of the advantages of having a city prepared from cycling and how Copenhagen has invested heavily in cycling a long time ago.

Here in Lisbon we know we’re finally getting some bike paths and while that’s a start much more needs to be done. Stuff that is virtually free to do but politically demanding. Some examples. The metro stations and shopping streets should have bicycle parks, trains, buses and metros should more easily allow bicycles inside them and a free bicycle system (card driven like in Paris) should be build around the city center.

July 2, 2009 | Tags: copenhagen, sustainability, travel

comments

9 Responses to “Copenhagen Bike City”

Ton on July 2nd, 2009

Yeah, we need more of Europe to become more like Copenhagen or the Netherlands when it comes to cycling!
Andre on July 2nd, 2009

Definitely Ton! I wish Lisbon was more like that.
Vitor Pereira on July 2nd, 2009

I would be great if they could flatten the city too
pedro mg on July 2nd, 2009

@Vitor, that’s what the shifters are for And if you now go up, later you come down.

Gaia and Porto are now almost connected by a bike path, 15Km’s, always by the sea, and that’s the reason why I’m building my “fixie”. For ups and downs, shifter bikes.

City planners can make the difference. Portland learned a lot with some european cities, and is now a bike city. Bike selling is going through the roof.
http://bikeportland.org/2009/06/30/pbot-preps-for-yearly-bike-counts/
Vitor Pereira on July 2nd, 2009

@Pedro, as you get older you’ll find that there are not enough shifts
pedro mg on July 2nd, 2009

@Vitor, on that I can only agree
Daniel Barradas on July 5th, 2009

Actually since I came back from Copenhagen I’ve been around Lisbon looking at the landscape and I think it’s actually doable.

We would need to “destroy” some boardwalks, move some trees and have the subway modernized …

I’m not seeing it happening for another 5 to 10 years but we’ll eventually get there. If the subway pushed the change though … that would be another story.

And it’s kinda sad it’s going to take so long since we have about 270 days of sunshine a year …
gmalta on July 6th, 2009

Lisbon could get bike elevators http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCWIjdVF0g , and then it would be quite easy to ride… u just need a bit of legs
Andre on July 6th, 2009

@gmalta: now that’s something that could really be useful going up to Bairro Alto!