
In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway - mkramer05
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/europe/in-denmark-pedaling-to-work-on-a-superhighway.html?pagewanted=all
======
tokenadult
Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city of cold, icy winters, is arguably the number-
one bicycle city in the United States,

[http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-
city-m...](http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-
minneapolis)

and one feature of bicycling in Minneapolis and its suburbs is an ongoing
effort to make regional bicycle trails, some by converting old railroad
railbeds into bicycle trails, including bicycle superhighways.

[http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_gree...](http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_greenway_community_bike_festival_celebrates_cycling.php)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Lake_Trail>

My wife regularly bicycle commutes (she is doing so as I type this) and our
whole family takes recreational trips into neighboring towns along dedicated
bicycle trails. We reduce our car driving by hundreds of miles per year by
using the city trail system (combining mostly walkers, and in winter skiers,
with quite a few year-round bicyclists) and the regional trail system
(combining mostly recreational bicyclists with some year-round bicycle
commuters and some walkers).

The regional trail system is becoming more and more extensive

[http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/inde...](http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/index.html)

and is projected to ring the entire metropolitan area with dedicated bicycle
trails in the next decade.

~~~
peterwwillis
DC/MD/VA have a lot of verrry long bike trails, and it makes a good deal of
sense to use them instead of fighting the beltway traffic, if you live a
certain distance away and have showers at work. But if you don't have showers
at work, what do you do once you get there? Spray on deodorant and feel gross
for the rest of the day?

~~~
VLM
"But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there?"

I don't live there, but my solution in a similar situation revolved around the
exercise club two blocks from work. On bike days you only use the club for its
shower, on non-bike days (winter, etc) you exercise at the club (lift weights,
mostly).

Also, hard as it might be to believe, bicycling more energy efficient than
walking at the same speed, so once you're in shape, going slow and enjoying
the ride is not sweaty, its possible to go slightly faster than walking while
generating less heat than a normal walk. Depending on your local weather, a
leisurely walk outdoors often results in no sweating at all.

~~~
aidenn0
Summer weather in the DC area is such that many days you can soak through your
clothing sitting on a park bench in the shade.

------
wallflower
The former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, has done remarkable things for
that city.

Among them, a dedicated bike lane/walking system that loops around most of the
city.

<http://www.streetfilms.org/lessons-from-bogota/>

[http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-
bicycle-a-...](http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-bicycle-a-
city-that-prioritises-cyclists/)

“Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the
poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income
people? That is really the true issue that exist?”

“God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to
fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be
happy.”

He is quite a character, featured in the maker of Helvetica's "Urbanized"

<http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/>

------
flexie
I used to bike to work in my suit in Copenhagen. Kids are driven to nursery
and kindergarten on bikes like this: <http://www.christianiabikes.com/>

In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and
not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues.

But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America.
Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely
fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77
degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have
much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it
wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.

~~~
hristov
In LA temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees in the winter and are rarely
above 85 in the summer. Yet LA is jam packed with cars and features traffic
jams at any time of day.

I think LA is a perfect city for bike streets. There are underground gangs of
byciclist in LA that periodically take over large streets by swarming them
with thousands of bikes and completely shutting down car traffic. I am sure
they do this to give city planners a clue, but the clues are slow to come.

~~~
flexie
Yes, LA - and especially SF - has nice climate for biking.

~~~
mjwalshe
But those hills in SF! my poor knees hurt just thinking about them.

------
darklajid
After one year of living abroad in Tel Aviv people here in Germany constantly
ask me what I miss the most.

They never expect 'riding the bike to work' as answer.

I had the privilege of being able to reach work by a very, very nice ride
through a park, along a river. No cars. Showers provided in the office. In
Germany I used to drive 1.6km to work with a car and I usually got up around
10. In Israel I drove 6.5-7km on a bike and usually just fell out of bed
around 7:30-8:00. The quality of life that this tiny change added is mind
blowing.

~~~
ido
Interesting, up to the end of your comment I was sure you were saying how you
were driving a car in Israel and biking in Germany :)

I'm an Israeli currently living in Vienna, I don't bike myself but it's very
common here & there are many bike paths. Also - everybody I know in Israel
owns a car, and almost nobody I know in Vienna does.

~~~
darklajid
See the other reply I did: I didn't want to own/use a car in the Tel Aviv
traffic (both because of jams, lack of parking and the general madness on the
streets). Riding a bike was very common among my friends and coworkers there
and while I was living there a couple of big bicycle projects were completed
(for example the whole promenade from the north of Tel Aviv to Yafo is now
having a nice special bike lane).

Yep, there are lots of issues still, but I think that Tel Aviv is actually a
decent place to bike (try not to get killed on the roads..) and constantly
improving.

Cologne is - worse (bike lanes suck, underground that actually runs overground
in places, on the street -> dangerous for bikes because you can easily end up
in the tracks, usually rainy and some time of the year brings ice and
potentially snow, work places aren't used to offer a shower because .. no one
needs one).

~~~
ido
BTW does Cologne just suck in terms of mass transit, or is there another
reason why you didn't use it? I can't imagine anyone driving 1.6km in a car in
Vienna, Berlin or Zurich.

~~~
darklajid
The magic word is..

lazyness

------
ajays
I don't understand this part: "(the region) has provided $1.6 million for the
superhighway project. "

How is it possible to build 14 miles of this bike highway for this little
money? (I'm an American). Here, you'd spend this amount just on "feasibility
study" and buying off the inevitable opposition.

~~~
morsch
Maybe the region only provided part of the total project budget?

As another data point, a somewhat similar but larger project -- about 100km
bike highway in an urbanised region -- in Germany is probably not going to
happen due to costs of >110 million EUR. That's approximately 10x as expensive
per km as the project in Copenhagen, if the $1.4 million is the total project
budget after all.

~~~
dojomouse
$100k/mile seems more reasonable given typical suburban rd pricing
(~$200k/mile). Hugely dependent on how much the right of way has to be
refrigged first I guess.

------
arnarbi
If you click through to the Danish news article, it is rather critical. The
title says "Is the new super cycle-path really super?" and there is a video of
riding through it. Turns out it is just normal cycle paths that have been
there for years it seems. They just made a route and painted an orange line to
mark it.

That said, Danish cycle paths are first class to begin with.

~~~
excuse-me
Could still be worth it if lots of people who didn't cycle suddenly see this
and give it a try.

It's still better value than most government adverts telling you to do
something!

~~~
arnarbi
Hmm, cycling in Copenhagen is the default mode of transportation. You can't
live there for more than three days and not be aware that there are cycle
paths everywhere.

~~~
excuse-me
You wouldn't think there were many people that didn't know smoking is bad for
you - but it doesn't stop the govt spending millions telling you!

It's still worth advertising that there is a fast/safe/easy cycle route
between A-B.

The city here (N. America) does a good (well cheap) job of marking certain
streets as preferred cycle routes. These are normally one block off the main
traffic street and mean that all the cyclists are concentrated together into a
sufficent mass that they dominate the road and drivers know to be more
carefull.

------
simonz05
Just came home from work on my bicycle in Copenhagen. Didn't know we had
superhighway's. I understand the effort of trying to make the long distance
routes more pleasant, though.

We have another problem however, which is that the inner city is very crowded
in rush hour. I hope the expand the high traffic lanes to become even wider at
some point. Currently all lanes are double-lanes, but triple lanes would be
really nice in choke-points. This might sound stupid to someone which doesn't
even have bike lanes in their city, but this is an actual problem in
Copenhagen. It's not so much about being able to go fast, but also about
safety.

------
vosper
One of the women in that photo is using her mobile phone while she cycles
along right next to a bunch of other people. That is so dangerous. It's
behaviour like this (and the inability to cycle in a straight-ish line) that
makes me hate biking in groups of commuters, like those riding down Market St
in SF.

~~~
Someone
How dangerous? I think it all depends on how well the average drive can ride
in a straight line. Having a bike with a larger slant in the front fork
(Wikipedia calls them roadster
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle)>, but does not realize that
'keeps a straight line easier' is one of its most important assets) helps
tremendously there.

For examples of 'safe' use of a mobile phone while cycling, see
<http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/>

~~~
vosper
It does relate to your ability to bike in a straight line, but the other
danger is that you're not looking at what other people are doing.

Relative to their width people on bikes move a lot more side-to-side than a
car does - it's not uncommon to see a person on a bike weaving a couple of
feet in either direction as they pedal. If cars did this the lanes would have
to be 2-3 times the width of the car on either side to accomodate the
movement.

Further, having one hand off the handlebars massively diminishes your ability
to react safely and accurately.

Granted, the worst that might happen in a bike-on-bike crash is a broken bone
or concussion, but for people who aren't at peak health (or who just get
really unlucky) this could be a significant, even life-changing event.

~~~
Someone
Yeah, it definitely is not for everybody, everywhere, every time :-)

I just wanted to point out that danger depends on lots of things.

Many people on the photos I referenced probably are well on their way to or
over the magical 10.000 hours of practice riding a bicycle. Most car drivers,
similarly, will have lots of experience driving in traffic with cyclists.
Also, if you look closely, you will notice those not on bike paths often are
in the middle of a road that is not wide enough for a car to pass them. Cars,
in that location, do not go faster than bikes. It also does not look
particularly busy there.

------
trout
I've thought about how many more places I would be willing to bike to if I
could just hop on the freeway with my bike. We have an event every year where
they allow you to, and it's a tease.

------
tscrib
I'm a regular commuter cyclist (Halifax, NS; now Ottawa, ON) and how I wish I
could ride on such a highway! Even the best cycling lanes I have experienced
are punctuated by stops, intersections and red lights. When you're cruising at
35km/h, there is nothing worse than having to come to a complete stop.

More of this please.

~~~
excuse-me
See the famous [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-
mo...](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-
month/book.htm) for the UK's worst cycle paths

------
NathanKP
I used to bike about 20 miles a week, and I really miss it, since I moved to a
more suburb area where it is no longer practical. Projects like these sound
awesome, and make me wonder what it would take to get something like it
started here in the US.

~~~
jarek
> wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.

I've been reading these discussions on the internet for a while and I've been
seeing a willingness and perhaps even a desire to excuse the status quo as a
large factor. Bring up the stereotypical Copenhagen and Amsterdam and
immediately people post reasons why North America can't be like that: the
hills and the climate and the distances and so on.

It strikes me as very un-American in a way - challenging land and climate and
large distances haven't stopped Americans from expanding into the desert
southwest or paving interstate freeways through the Rockies or building air
force bases in Alaska tundra but they do apparently stop people from getting
around on a bicycle. For every hilly Seattle and San Francisco there's a flat
Midwest town (or a flatter route through a hilly city that could benefit from
infrastructure even if other routes are not feasible) and for every location
with a hot summer and cold winter there's mild northeast and northwest. By
some of the criteria advanced, small towns in New England should be bike
infrastructure havens, which they are decidedly not.

It's one thing if you consciously don't want bike infrastructure, it's another
to throw up your arms and declare it'll never work there without trying.

~~~
moheeb
Well first of all if you try biking through the desert southwest on a hot day
you are likely to die. Imagine crossing hundreds of miles of desert in 115
degree heat. Where do you get your water?

Secondly, climbing the Rockies on a bike is beyond most people's level of
fitness. I would say only experienced road riders would be able to accomplish
that.

Thirdly...crossing the Alaskan tundra on bike would be nearly impossible
without specialized gear. Standard bike tires would not be able to cross the
snow/ice without sinking. Also the consistent freezing temperatures
necessitate specialized clothing which is not conducive to riding.

I can easily see why those three landscapes might "stop people from getting
around on a bicycle".

~~~
jarek
These were examples of what people can do when they set their minds to it.

Of course people won't be commuting to work across hundreds of miles of desert
or mountains or tundra. They don't do that in cars either.

There are, however, fairly basic ways of making normal people commutes more
bearable on a bicycle: dedicated paths shaded by a tree row, evenly-spaced
water fountains, hedge rows for wind-blown snow blocking, reliable snow
clearing, perhaps escalator-like systems for climbing up hills along highly
popular routes.

------
ChuckMcM
I've always wondered if we couldn't do an elevated bike trail in the San
Francisco Bay Area. One of the challenges of doing an elevated freeway or road
are the costs associated with supporting vehicles, but a huge number of
bikes/pedestrians would not be quite as burdensome. On/off ramps would be a
challenge as that is where they would most likely interfere with existing
traffic patterns.

The Stevens Creek trail (an old rail bed in parts) is a good example of an
urban trail. And of course highway 85 before they officially opened it, it was
like four lane bike trail and exceptionally awesome.

~~~
ammmir
do you have any photos of what the 85 bike trail used to look like? i only
found some constructions shots at
<http://www.interstate80.info/85_uc_california_2.html> but i'm sure it must've
been beautiful.

------
johnchristopher
I am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating
pictures show cyclists without helmets or any other form of protective gears.

In Belgium there is a small movement promoting bikes and there are all kind of
hipsters, bobo and 50 years old grey hair vegan on fake vintage bikes riding
without helmets and without any sense of road conduct. Good bikers wearing
yellow jackets and helmets are really rare ; I am beginning to think the
formers are ruining the latters's image.

~~~
biehl
Sorry, in Denmark there are plenty of good bikers that are not wearing yellow
jackets and helmets. Why should they? The cycle superhighways are about safe-
for-biking infrastructure, so you can dress as you like when biking. In
central Copenhagen quite a lot of people bike in suits which is awesome.

~~~
arethuza
Having survived a cycling accident that probably would have killed me if I
hadn't been wearing a helmet that occurred on a perfectly "safe" traffic free
track I would urge everyone to _always_ wear a cycling helmet.

~~~
bryanlarsen
You use the word "track" which implies you were cycling at a high speed, so
you are quite likely correct.

Studies show quite a clear benefit for wearing helmets if you are travelling
above 20km/hr.

The benefits of a helmet are much less significant if you are biking less than
20km/hr.

~~~
arethuza
By track I meant a rural unsurfaced road - the accident was completely my own
fault, but I fell off and my head hit a post at the side of the road. My
helmet broke into fragments and although I was unconscious for a while (I had
no idea how long) it was my helmet rather than my skull that broke into
pieces.

~~~
jarek
You probably realize this but I just want to note that helmets and skulls have
very different failure modes (by design in helmet's case) and just because
your helmet split into pieces doesn't necessarily mean your skull would have
as well.

~~~
alexfoo
Indeed, I can't find the link to the video where they show many different
brands of cycle helmet splitting into pieces when heading a football (soccer)
dropped from a certain height (which causes no injury for someone heading it
without wearing a helmet).

(Pro-choice and anti-compulsion on the helmet issue. I choose not to wear one.
I cycle 5,000 miles a year - 10,000 miles in a good year - cycle commuting in
London, UK and leisure riding or touring.)

------
johnohara
Good job Denmark. No negatives that I can see.

OT: The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) starts
this Saturday. Anyone who's ever participated in this event can appreciate the
morning commute with 10,000+ of your closest friends to get pancakes and
breakfast burritos in the first town.

<http://www.ragbrai.com>

~~~
wiredfool
I did a couple (12 and 16, I think). What a blast. I just love riding early in
the morning, when it's cool and misty when you just knew that the heat would
hit in full force in the afternoon.

------
cygwin98
Just curious, can you ride e-bikes on the bike highways in Denmark?

~~~
biehl
Yes. E-bikes are legal and regulated.

------
InclinedPlane
As much as I love to support biking it's important to keep in mind how
geography dependent it can be. Denmark and The Netherlands are extremely flat,
which makes them unusually suitable locations for biking. If you add in any
significant amount of elevation change then you immediately raise the bar in
terms of the fitness requirements necessary to get to typical destinations.

~~~
jlarocco
That's a pretty lame excuse, IMO.

I don't think most cities have so much elevation gain that biking to work
isn't practical for most people. There are _definitely_ exceptions, but I'm
pretty sure a person of average fitness could bike to work without too much
trouble in the vast majority of cases.

The majority of bikes sold have multiple gears, so hills should be even less
of an issue.

------
sorenbs
As a dane who has traveled a lot in the us i must say that i wouldn't dare to
bike in most american cities.

------
iconfinder
As a Dane and living in Copenhagen, this is what I miss everytime I'm in
another city (except Amsterdam perhaps). I love how there are bike lanes all
over the place. We also have traffic lights for bikes that let's you get ahead
of the cars.

------
jbarham
Funny how stories about bicycle commuting seem to peak in summer...

~~~
dpetters
I'm an intern in the Seattle area for the summer and was faced with a choice
upon arriving - buy a bike and get $350 of it covered or pay ~$1000 to get a
rental car for all three months. Due to the obvious financial benefit of the
former I wanted a bike, but after it raining for a week straight upon my
arrival I chose to get a car. This, along with the tremendous social benefits
of being able to come and go as you please, convinced me that owning and
riding a bike is a healthy alternate transportation method for the nice days,
but not really a feasible replacement.

~~~
quantumstate
I have spent the last two years at university cycling to lecture and am now
cycling to work. It saves a large amount of money (~£1800 insurance+£1500
running costs). If it rains you just wear waterproof clothing. You can easily
get good quality waterproofs (e.g. Gore-Tex) for £200 which will last for
years.

You have to be willing to live fairly near to work of course. For me it would
probably take about the same amount of time to drive to work. It takes me
about 13 minutes to cycle and rush hour traffic will slow a car down.

If I want to go longer distances I can catch a train (and take the bike for
the other end) or take a bus. Occasionally hiring a car is also possible for
rare occasions.

So for me using a bike is completely feasible for living in a city.

------
excuse-me
$1.6M of taxpayers money for a 40km bike route? You could build almost
35metres of freeway for that!

~~~
bunderbunder
Sad how close to true this is. I used to work in transportation, and at least
the USA* the figure is about $10-40M per mile, with rural highway being
cheaper and urban highway being more expensive. So $1.6M really could buy you
as little as 64 meters of freeway. (Or as much as 1/4 km!)

* Which, I should mention, has a bit of a tradition of cheaping out on the construction. Why worry about the higher maintenance costs when that's going to be your successor's problem? Better to kick that can down the road and brag about how much taxpayer money you're "saving". Ahh, the beauty of the spoils system.

~~~
excuse-me
Have you considered adopting the British system?

You bid out the construction to the cheapest contractor with strict penalties
for late completion. But the same company then gets the contract for repair
and maintenance for the next 20years!

Politicians were shocked when their brand new freeway closed for resurfacing
within a month of opening.

~~~
jessepollak
Wow, that's super interesting. Do you know of any data on whether this has
been an effective strategy for keeping costs down?

~~~
Shoomz
Jesse, I think you missed the point. It's like the old Consulting axiom: If
you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made prolonging
the problem.

~~~
jessepollak
Yeah, I'm an idiot. Somehow the last line when in one ear and out the other.
Thanks for checking me on that.

