Of culture, climate and cycling
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A good percentage of Danish cyclists brave harsh winters and prefer to pedal to work
“The taste for cycling is inherent in the citizens of Copenhagen”, says Thomas Holst, a Dane who is explaining why cycling has become so popular here.
Klaus Bondman, a technical and environmental administration official of the city, puts it more pithily: “Cycling is as natural for Copenhageners as brushing their teeth.”
“Cycling reduces CO2 emissions and provides more space to enjoy urban life. This is why, in recent years, we have extensively invested in improving conditions for present and future cyclists,” he says.
Today Copenhagen’s residents own 560,000 bicycles – for a population of just over half a million. No wonder 150,000 people in the city cycle to work or school every morning.
This encourages climate campaigners desperate to see a drastic reduction of emissions. They hope the world will emulate the Danes.
“I think if we become conscious of the implications of our own actions and get used to environment friendliness by using a bicycle when it is possible, using public transport rather than getting into a car for short drives, and taking other measures at our own level, the world’s leaders will have no choice but to listen to us,” says Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
Owning a car is no big deal for the average person, especially in a developed country like Denmark which ranks seventh in the world table for per capita income.
In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks, some visitors were so impressed that they argued for the “Copenhagenising” of the rest of the world’s cities.
Copenhagen has an ordered network of bicycle lanes throughout the city with a whole lot of well-disciplined people cycling around. But Lise Pedersen, political director at the Danish Cyclists’ Federation, says cyclists still do not feel satisfied with the lanes, which are wide enough for four or five bicycles only. “An increased number of cargo bikes has resulted in increased congestion on cycle tracks,” he says.
The city planners have drawn up a plan for bicycle safety in traffic and “are constantly improving” dangerous intersections and road junctions.
“In 2008, our survey revealed that 37 per cent of the people of Copenhagen chose to pedal all the way. This was a slight improvement over 2006 when the figure was 36 per cent,” says Pedersen. The figure has risen by another two to three per cent this year.
Cycling in the city reportedly leave fewer chances for traffic jams. “I can’t claim jams are not occurring at all, but I can certainly say that congestion on our cycle tracks is also increasing with the ever-increasing popularity of cycling,” he says.
Car-parking spaces are few and far between compared with those for bicycles. Bicycles are not plonked down all over the city at random, to the annoyance of pedestrians. “In 2006 there were 29, 000 public cycle parking spaces in the city and this rose by 5,000 in 2008, an 18 per cent increase,” says Pedersen.
He is working with the railways to improve combining cycling with train transport. “The bicycle-train combination has high potential as an alternative to private cars”, he says.
He adds: “We have set three targets for 2015: at least 50 per cent of people in Copenhagen city will go to their places of work or school by bike; the number of cyclists killed and seriously injured will be reduced by more than 50 per cent compared with 2005 [the number in 2008 was 121]; and 80 percent of cyclists will feel safe (51 per cent did so in 2008).”
