I recently ran across a hard-to-believe, but as far as I can tell, accurate statistic: the Copenhagen metropolitan area has more miles of protected bike lanes than the entire United States combined does. That is somewhat surprising, since the Copenhagen metro area isn't really all that big.
Sure, but you're making my point against your original one. Copenhagen has a bit more than 400km of bike lanes [0], which is less than a fourth of what you reported NYC has. Which was my point: NYC should have much much more than 1,000 miles of bike lanes to be even comparable to Stockholm or Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is one of the most wonderful cities to get around I've seen. Many of the bike lanes are separated and raised from vehicle street level by a small curb, which does not stop a determined vehicle (or out of control vehicle) from invading the lane, but does wonders for the psyche of the bicyclist. The feeling of gliding through the city via your own network of paths is incredible. There's often plenty of bike parking too.
In my opinion, all densely populated cities with reasonable climates should be built that way. If San Francisco had similar dedicated lanes throughout the city, and more bike parking, I'd absolutely wager that car ownership (and all of those cars laying fallow on the street) would drop significantly.
I don't know about that. NYC has Staten Island and huge parts of Queens which are effectively a rural village, whereas Copenhagen as well as most of Europe is highly urban. If you mapped population density to bike lane coverage, NYC would come out pretty favorably.
I've cycled around Copenhagen and the vast majority of cycle lanes are smaller than a car sized lane.
We should be copying the infrastructure designs of European cities that have been successful at getting people onto bikes etc. (Although not the "kissing bridge" as that's a stupid design for bikes). I thought you were pushing the idea of building as many roads as possible - that's clearly not pragmatic.
The other very noticeable aspect to travel around Copenhagen is that they have excellent public transport. It's incredible to see the number of bikes they manage to squeeze onto their trains during busy times.
I'm not denying what you've seen, but it just doesn't match what I've seen at all.
> Several cities have opted to remove their protected bike lanes for exactly the same reasons.
Sure, but many cities are rapidly _expanding_ their network of protected bike lanes because of how widely they're used.
I don't have data to back this up, but I suspect that many more miles of protected bike lanes are being added each year than removed. For example, NYC [1]. For another, here's a compilation of many cities. [2]
On the other hand, lots of other cities in California and elsewhere have similar circumstances. Meanwhile, Copenhagen has very different circumstances but huge bike uptake.
It's fundamentally about policy. Take the steps, and you'll get the results.
To my mind, one of the main issues, in addition to protected bike lanes is the spread. Bike friendly cities are more compact. Commuting to work via bike is not a strenuous fifteen mile commute one way. They tend to be leisurely few mile rides. Now, not to say it's not possible, but a one to five mile bike ride is not the same as a ten to fifteen or more miles bike ride.
Now, I do like Copenhagen's above ground bike roundabout, I've seen. It'd be nice to see those at dangerous or busy intersections.
I'd also like to see "turning boxes" where to make a left you go to a perpendicular boxed out area on the right and wait for your light. They have these in Asia for scooters and bikes.
I'm in favor of reducing speed lines, but I don't think that is enough. I haven't seen a city with more bikes (or where cycling works better) than Copenhagen, and it's full of bike lanes (the vast majority of them proper, segregated bike lanes, not painted, of course).
That is true, but even in Denmark, bike usage among adults is greatest in the biggest cities. Rural and sub-urban life requires cars (but the politicians live in Copenhagen so they don’t appreciate this reality).
Still, you can do a lot to make cities more bike friendly. In Silicon Valley it’s my impression that Palo Alto is vastly more bike friendly than all of the neighbor cities.
One thing to remember is that Copenhagen had many bikers before it had many bike lanes. Bike lanes on the main traffic arteries of Copenhagen is pretty much a thing of the last 10-15 years or so. Before that bikers in central Copenhagen rode their bikes on the streets (with a few exceptions).
Now, many of the suburbs of Copenhagen were designed with biking in mind and have had extensive networks of bike lanes for the last 30-40 years. Of course, people moving from there and into Copenhagen took their biking habits with them.
Copenhagen has other incentives that makes biking the choice: Huge taxes on cars (first a 25 percent VAT, then 105 percent fee for the first roughly 14,000 dollars of the value of the car (incl. the VAT), then 180 percent on the exceeding value of the car), huge taxes on gasoline (the gasoline tax alone is around 3.5 dollars per gallon, then there is the 25 percent VAT, bringing the total price per gallon up around 8 dollars). Further, in many parts of Copenhagen the daily fee for parking exceeds 20 dollars.
Also, Copenhagen is relatively dense, compared to many American cities, and many families living in the suburbs have at least one parent working locally (typically in public sector jobs such as teaching, day care, elderly care, the local municipality etc.). Biking is only a realistic means of transportation if distances are small. It may work for New York City one day, but probably not for Houston or LA...
> keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use
Plenty of railway stations (plenty of streets!) surround themselves with car parking, which is a much less efficient use of space compared with bicycle parking.
Here [1] is above the underground Nørreport station in Copenhagen. Not the main station, but the second busiest. Lots of designated bicycle parking, but the latent demand is probably higher than what's available. At some point, the hassle of finding a place to leave the bicycle outweighs the delay with simply walking through the city centre, just like driving a car.
"Nuisance" bicycles get damaged, so there's pressure not to leave them in the way. In the proper bike rack, or within an area of bike racks, or leaning against a building, seems to count as a proper area. Anywhere else, the bike might get knocked over and not righted. Then the wheels end up tacoed.
But really, for any city that isn't Copenhagen or Amsterdam, converting some car parking spaces into 8-10 bicycle spaces each should leave plenty of room for bicycles.
Yes, generally the solution is the two things you identify: 1) there is an extensive bicycle network, separated as much as possible from the vehicular lanes; and 2) cycling is something a broad cross-section of the population does, on said network. In that case it would be both stupid and probably illegal to bike in the car lanes, and there is also no real "cyclist" identity. That is also how it is here (Copenhagen).
In almost all parts of the U.S., the law and infrastructure cuts the other way, though. There is no separate bike infrastructure [1], and bicycles are legally treated as vehicles. In that context, it doesn't seem that surprising to me that the fewer people who still dare ride a bike demand to be treated as the (poorly designed) legal framework envisions they should be.
[1] I'd love a good source to verify this comparison (I heard it in a talk), but something I recently heard quoted is: Greater Copenhagen (1.5m people) has more km of protected bicycle infrastructure (~1000km) than the entire United States added together does (~400km).
I'm not sure this is true in Copenhagen, although I've only visited once and I don't have any data to back me up. There is a huge cycling culture there and it seemed that the bike lanes were often pretty badly jammed up while the car lanes were relatively clear. But perhaps this is more a result of it being impractical to own a car there (eg parking) as opposed to the cost or convenience of operating one.
It would seem to be an outlier so it would be interesting to see some data.
I'm from Sweden and have been biking in NYC as a tourist. I must say, it is one of the most scariest places I have biked in my life.
Huge cars, almost no biking lanes, a lot of people and other traffic. I admit I was also a bit drunk but still, in Stockholm we have biking lanes almost everywhere and you feel a lot safer. Also there is a lot more people that use the bike when you give them a lane to bike on.
Please, create more biking lanes. It's better for the cars, it is better for pedestrians, it's better for the environment and public health.
The amount of lane-miles dedicated to bikes in NYC is <1%. At the rate bike lanes are currently built in NYC it would take centuries to reach anywhere in the 10% neighborhood.
Cyclists keep getting promised the world around the country. I’ll believe it when I see it.
But that does not mean that parts os US that have favorable conditions should not improve bike infrastructure. You are comparing one city (88.25 km²) to a country (9.834 million km²)
I’m curious if you have seen more about the plans the article discusses? Talk of proper physical segregation of bike traffic using bollards sounds very nice. Copenhagen’s concrete curb separating bike lanes from car lanes is the gold standard I hope to see more places adopt.
I recently ran across a hard-to-believe, but as far as I can tell, accurate statistic: the Copenhagen metropolitan area has more miles of protected bike lanes than the entire United States combined does. That is somewhat surprising, since the Copenhagen metro area isn't really all that big.
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