Sunday, June 25, 2023. 

You’ll often hear Americans dismiss the idea of widespread cycling to the extent seen in Europe because of culture. Cycling is to them what baseball or (American) football might be to us, it seems. But I think we vastly misunderstand culture as something innately ingrained in our personalities, rather than a response to our environment. My first few observations from Copenhagen—consistent with observations I’ve made throughout Europe in the past—is that cycling here is not a cultural thing; it’s a transportation option, and often the most sensible one. When the infrastructure exists to get around the city safely and quickly, it simply makes sense to use an option that is the least expensive, most versatile, and saves time by not needing to be fueled up or parked. There’s no traffic congestion on a bike—at least none that you can’t get around within a couple seconds—and there’s something to be said for getting some sunshine, light exercise and fresh air along the route.

With a few rare exceptions, in the US you’ll mostly see a pretty narrow range of ages on a bike, and certainly more men than women. Most bikes are road bikes, designed for speed, with the rider hunched over to be more aerodynamic. What I’ve always appreciated about Europe, though, is the egalitarian nature of biking. Just yesterday I saw everyone from very young children to adults in their 80s on bikes. Front-load cargo bikes, aka Bakfiets, are very common here and on at least five or six occasions I saw entire families on/in one, usually fathers biking mothers and kids in the cargo box. I observed a woman in her 20s wheeling what I assume to be her grandma around. (I guarantee you that’s how I’ll want to live out my twilight years.) Importantly, the bikes are upright and riders are dressed normally… very normally. Men in suits, women in dresses, people who obviously jumped on the bike without a thought as to what kind of gear they need, because “gear” isn’t really much of a thing here. The bikes have the basics for transportation: a lock attached to the back wheel, a basket on front, fenders so you don’t spin mud or dirt up off the wheels. For most, no helmet—which my ER doctor husband cringes at, because he’s seen what can happen to the melon if it’s not protected. So while I’ll still wear my helmet, I can at least appreciate how normalized biking is across all ages, races, socioeconomic levels and even destination types. In short, the cycling “culture” here is a result of practicality, not hobby.

Our first day of meetings and presentations in the books, and it was nothing short of fascinating. We first met with Niels Hoe from 360 Consulting, who spoke to us about his work helping make Copenhagen one of the world’s best cycling cities. The first thing that stood out to me is something I had suspected all along: that a city with truly sustainable, multi-modal transportation can never be one that simply adds to its car-centric infrastructure; it has to be one where the more sustainable modes are made to be more competitive than driving. It’s a bit of a tricky thing to say in America, where people have become so dependent on cars that throwing up any hurdles to driving—whether physical or financial—would seem like removing a lung. This illustrates the importance of investing heavily in alternative modes simultaneous to scaling back policies and infrastructure that prioritize private vehicle use, so people have alternatives to fall back on. From a policy perspective, it’s hard to justify heavy spending on ped, bike and transit when infrastructure for cars already take up so much of cities’ and states’ budgets. But it has to be done.

In Copenhagen, a considerable emphasis has been placed on a comprehensive approach to gradually chip away at VMT (vehicle miles traveled). Some of the policies and practices include:

-          Consistent budgets for walking, biking and transit secured for years down the road, relieving much of the pressure to make quick, piecemeal changes before a change in government

-          180% tax on automobile purchases (although this has since been reduced to *just* 100%)

-          A light rail system built in the 1990s (more on that later in my post about our meeting with Metro)

-          Fully separated bike superhighways extending out to the suburbs

-          Since the 1960s, all new bridges are ped/bike-only (roughly 12 of them… compare that to Portland, which in 2015 got its first and only non-car bridge over the Willamette River)

-          Most striking to me: a protected bike lane on every major road in the city. Almost nowhere here have I seen a strip of paint slapped on the road—nearly all lanes are elevated and fully separated from vehicle traffic. Cyclists only ever have to mix with cars on the slowest, quietest streets.

This is a city where I feel safe on a bike everywhere, without exception. As a parent, it’s something I dream of for my kids; not only would I not have to worry about them like I do at home, but they wouldn’t need me to chauffeur them around until the age of 16 (at which point, I’ll note, my worries will just shift as they get behind the wheel of a car). Niels said something I found especially striking. When his daughter was a teenager, he accepted a job in Wellington, New Zealand and moved his family there. After the move from Copenhagen to Wellington, his daughter expressed frustration with being in a car-dependent city, at one point saying to Niels and his wife, “mom and dad, you took my freedom.” I myself grew up in a car-dependent area of suburban Denver, unable to go anywhere without a ride from my parents until I turned 16. Even then, I had to rely on a car that required money to fuel and insure, and often broke down. It was only when I moved to Seattle in college and lived in a walkable district with a good bus system that I learned how freeing a diverse transportation system is. I felt for Niels’s daughter: while I went from transportation dependency to transportation freedom, his daughter went in the opposite direction. It must be extremely difficult to live your life able to move freely throughout the city, especially during your formative pre-teen and teenage years, only to have that taken away.

This relates back to one of the first things Niels discussed: Copenhagen didn’t just set out to have a good transportation network, it aimed to be an inviting city that its citizens could interact with. This is a lesson those focused on the automobile miss entirely: transportation is intricately tied to the livelihood of a city and how its citizens interact with businesses, with nature, with one another—all the things that make a city great. I’ve always felt that the ability to move safely and comfortably by foot and bike has benefits for everyone: For younger kids, it’s the ability to walk or bike to school. For a teenager, it’s easy access to third places to socialize with friends. For adults, it’s grabbing a quick drink to bounce ideas off a colleague before heading home from work, or discovering a great new restaurant on a detour from the usual route to the Metro station. For the elderly, it’s the independence of having a small grocery store a few blocks away once the eyesight and reflexes are no longer what they once were. It’s chance encounters on the street, bike rides in fresh air through the park or along a canal, and stopping into a shop to buy something cute you spotted in window. Some of these things can be done in a car, but are much less likely to happen if you’re traveling through your city in a metal and glass box at 30-70 mph. It’s notable that so many people around the world travel to Europe’s cities not for their more car-heavy rural or suburban areas, but for their walkable, bikeable central areas. It’s no coincidence that those are the most comfortable, vibrant areas.

I’ll close with a few facts and statistics that Niels shared with us:

-          Cycling in Copenhagen actually hit its peak in 1949, before many people could afford a private car. That year, one bridge counted roughly 62,000 cyclists per day, a figure that cratered to 8,200/day in 1978. Today that bridge is up to roughly 45,000 cyclists per day—a significant improvement, but not as high as it once was.

-          When combining transit and biking, his wife’s 12km (7.5mi) route to/from work is faster and easier than driving.

-          Roughly 10 bikes can fit in the equivalent of one car space, or 4 cargo bikes.

-          When it snows in Copenhagen, the pedestrian paths and bike lanes get plowed before vehicle lanes. When they talk about rebalancing priorities toward the most sustainable modes of transportation, they mean it.

More on our other two meetings later. For now, it’s time for some rest before our big, 3-hour ride tomorrow!

We also crossed some of the bridges between Copenhagen's various islands. Most of the bridges are car-free and allow pedestrians and bikes only (although I believe the Snake Bridge is bikes only). We did cross one bridge that has a lane for car traffic, but it's worth noting that this lane was nearly empty (see bottom image below). To me, that was a good indication that fewer car lanes doesn't have to mean more congestion, especially if the city has built in a way that successfully induces other modes.

My favorite stop by far, though, was the kids' traffic playground. This is a park in Copenhagen designed just for kids, with car-free streets and kid-sized signs and signals to allow them to learn the rules of the road and just take over the roads for themselves. I've visited this playground a couple of times now and wish I had my kids (ages 4 and 6) with me to experience it. It's truly joyful to see how Copenhageners have built their city for all ages.

In the afternoon we visited Movia, the planning company for Copenhagen’s municipal bus system. Morten Eltred, a project manager at Movia, gave us a presentation about some of Movia’s challenges relating to capacity and integration with other public transportation systems. Movia serves roughly 1.8 million people in the Sealand and Capital regions and is owned by 45 separate municipalities within these two regions. In October 2019, Metro opened a new line circling the city center (aimed at providing easier connections between the “fingers” that serve as rail lines extending to the north, west and southwest or the city). Over the ten years the line was being constructed, Movia’s challenge was to plan a bus reconfiguration that serve the roughly 800,000 passengers in the area in a way that would complement, rather than compete with, the new rail line. Thirty-three bus lines were modified, new transport nodes were created, and bus lines were bundled. Community engagement was a large part of the process, with roughly 20 public meetings (including meetings specific to age groups like youth and seniors) ultimately giving way to unanimous approval of Movia’s planned changes in 2018, a year before the opening of the ring line.

Bus ridership cratered during the pandemic, but something I found worth noting is that cuts were not made to frequency. It was decided early on to maintain frequency even at considerable expense, because the remaining passengers still needed reliable bus service. I can only assume the efforts at maintaining reliability and consistency are part of the reason ridership is now just 10% below the pre-pandemic level. (For comparison, Portland’s TriMet system is 31% below pre-pandemic levels and is not expected to recover before 2045.)

I’ll close with a few of the keys to Movia’s success in facing these challenges. One is a consistent theme I’ve seen from many of the presentations we’ve seen: early agreement of the planning principles. Sustainability, a commitment to multimodal approaches and access for all regardless of age, location and income level were top priorities. Another key to the success was good cooperation across various organizations and stakeholders during the planning process. Planners were also pragmatic and respectful in their collaborations with bus operators. Finally, efforts were made early on to inform and involve the public in plans and changes.

I close with a couple other photos from the day, including some more bike infrastructure and my evening ride over to Reffen (and back home). The latter is an industrial park that has been turned into a food and drink market. My ride over, in the summer evening sun, was nothing short of magical.

The garage was especially impressive, because it illustrates how certain types of infrastructure doesn’t necessarily have to cause blight and negatively impact the look and feel of a neighborhood. A parking garage in the US is just accepted as something that’s necessary, but I almost never see secondary uses for one, and it’s also rare that one incorporates greenery (which, it should be noted, not only beautifies a structure but also helps capture CO2 and filter pollution from car emissions).

I'll end this with a few more photos of public spaces from our Thursday and Friday tours, including a couple of the spectacular views from the parking garage in Nordhavn.

Above: Urban13 event space below the Bispeenbuen Bridge

As the area below the Bispeenbuen bridge shows, though, the parts of CPH not spared from the push toward car-based infrastructure have suffered from neglect and decay—a situation not specific to this part of the world. Several years ago I read Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis’s autobiography and remember what a prominent role the areas under L.A.’s freeway bridges played in his struggles with drug addiction. Heavy in gang activity, these were the areas where Kiedis sought out drugs, and the inspiration behind the song Under the Bridge.

The beauty of Urban13 is that it attempts (not without challenges) to recognize the effects of poor urban planning and reverse them with targeted efforts at filling them with lighting, art and—most importantly—people. It’s not something that Bettina discussed, but one thing I’ve noticed since I began studying these concepts is that when in a built environment, people feel unsafe and uncomfortable wherever there are no people walking around. This is obviously different from nature, where we tend to feel comfortable and safe even in isolation. But built areas without humans outside their cars can often feel quite dangerous, and for very good reason. On a personal note, I once got cornered into a doorway by three men while walking alongside a road in Berlin. It was dusk, so not all that late, and there were apartment buildings to my right. But the road to my left was large enough that the area wasn’t very pleasant outside of a car, so the sidewalks were pretty devoid of people outside their cars. To make matters worse, the cars were moving at around 40-50mph, too fast to notice anything amiss with the crisis I had found myself in. I luckily broke free from the ambush just as one of the men attempted to reach for me, and took off running down the street. Only once I reached a corner with people sitting outside a café—i.e., outside their cars—did I finally feel safe.

Urban13 still faces a number of challenges, not least among them getting more girls and women to feel safe in the space when using it for typically male-dominated sports like skateboarding. One member of our group poignantly asked if some of those challenges maybe stem from the fact that Urban13 was founded by five men. Regardless, I think the challenges presented by such an inherently unwelcoming space can be substantial for women and girls simply because of the added dangers we face in general, and I applaud Urban13 for recognizing the issue and searching for solutions to it.

One question I had for Bettina, given that Copenhagen is considering tearing down the Bispeenbuen overpass once it reaches the end of its useful life in about 10 years, is whether Urban13 will embrace the loss of their space or fight to keep it up. She seemed to indicate that they would consider it a win for Copenhageners. I appreciated that the company appeared to have the best interest of its community at heart, even at the possible expense of its existence as an organization.

In fact, one of the things I’ve found impressive about the Danes in general is the recognition that even something as convenient and beneficial as car ownership and infrastructure has downsides that can’t be ignored. There are certainly outliers here who want more car bridges and fewer bike lanes, but they are few. And the more the general public becomes accustomed to beautiful, safe, inviting urban spaces and a transportation system that still moves them efficiently through the city via bike, walking and public transit, the less of a “loss” it would be to remove a six-lane car-only bridge.

I'll close with a few more photos from one of the stops on our morning bike tour: a recycling facility that I found to be pretty interesting.

Above: Morning bike ride in Aarhus before hopping the train to Aalborg

Back to Aalborg… my first impression is that it’s much smaller than both Copenhagen and Aarhus and seems to be seeking an identity of its own. From a transportation standpoint, the city is not built as well for cycling, although it’s still better than the vast majority of American cities in that regard. There are protected lanes on the major roads, but for most other places you’re either on the road with the cars or you get a strip of paint.

As for the city itself, I enjoyed seeing many of the murals you can find throughout the city. We also rode out to a recreation area with swimming and playgrounds (although it was far too cold to swim) and something of a seaside village just outside the city. Another interesting stop was a collective artists’ studio, which members of the public are allowed to walk through.

I’ll just leave it at that and let the pictures speak for themselves.