> the current sub-standard understanding of Best Practice infrastructure
> Best Practice has been established. It's ridiculous to try and reinvent the wheel.
> It's simple if Paris wants it to be.
If the author thinks that the understanding of "Best Practice" is substandard, maybe he should post a link to what he means, instead of leaving the term undefined and then acting smug about it.
Googling "Best Practice bicycle" returns a number of documents from different cities. It's unclear which of these (if any) correspond to the author's idea of "best practice" for cycling infrastructure.
I did find a post by the same author (http://www.copenhagenize.com/2013/04/the-copenhagenize-bicyc...) which advertises itself as a "planning guide", but is actually just a poster made by someone who was apparently more interested in graphic design than in actually conveying information.
As usual with the French left, a lot of wishful thinking but not much will be done (a lot of money will be spent though). I bet you that by 2020 Paris will not be the best bicycle city in the world, far from it.
And btw, we French don't have a bicycle culture. For us every day bicycling (not sport) is for people that can't afford a car (and the rare idealists that think they're going to save the planet).
I'm always amazed at the number of bikes I see when I go in Germany or Holland (never went to Denmark). It's not a matter of money, they are richer than us, it's really cultural.
If you really want to see more bicycles on French roads you need gas to be at about 2€ / liter (Google says it's about 8 bucks for a gallon).
As a cyclist (not an idealist though), I consider the major problem in France to be the infrastructure. A lot of people do not use their bike because it is dangerous in the cities and because there are almost no place to park your bike. I suppose it is because of the car culture as you said. It was not considered worth it to invest in it until recently.
The Paris metro is really nice, but bicycling would be faster if the traffic lights etc were friendly. It's a nice dense city where you could go far in 20 minutes on a bicycle.
On the metro it's easy to waste 20 minutes just on the extras — walking to/from the station, inside the stations, waiting for the trains. Each of these things takes just a few minutes because the stations are close and the trains run often, but few+few+few so easily =30, particularly if you have to change trains.
Bicycling is also for people that already find it way more convenient/enjoyable/cheaper/faster/ to move through a city.
The incentive is not only on gas price, but on the whole experience, where the environment/infrastructure play a lot. Architecture governs.
When moving/parking your car is slow, complex, expensive, whereas using a bike (be it powered or not), public transportation or your feets is not, depending on your travel, the choice is quickly made.
Some cities are rearchitecting around this whole experience. Paris, Nantes (for those I know well) have been doing this for several years already, and it's a long, painful process for everyone and every business, but that definitely feels like a good thing.
> Bicycling is also for people that already find it way more convenient/enjoyable/cheaper/faster/ to move through a city.
I don't get the "enjoyable" part. Maybe it's because I live in the country, but the thought of taking deep breaths in an environment saturated with car exhausts would stop me.
I totally agree on the 2020 goal: it seems totally really un-reasonnable to me too. You simply don't change a car-centric population in 5 years!
I commute by bike everyday, 10 km, in a medium city in the french alps. Every single day I encounter a situation where I am concretely in danger. French drivers suck and simply don't care about bike riders.
When you ride a bicycle in Berlin or Tokyo you truly sense what it's like to be actually considered, and it changes all your interface with the city!
> we French don't have a bicycle culture. For us every day bicycling (not sport) is for people that can't afford a car (and the rare idealists that think they're going to save the planet).
Have you been to Strasbourg recently? There's definitely a bicycle culture there...
FWIW, when you are a Parisian and you know what "copenhagenize" means, someone claiming to "copenhagenize Paris" is not welcomed these days, considering the attacks we just suffered.
Copenhagenize is a term that was coined after the second battle of Copenhagen in 1807. During this battle, the British fleet surrounded the city and massively bombarded it to submission. The entire Danish fleet was seized or destroyed. The destruction was so complete that a new word was invented: to "copenhagenize" a city is NOT a nice thing to say.
"Copenhagenization is a design strategy in which urban planning and design are centered on making a city more accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians, and less car dependent"
I think we can be sensible and infer that they mean the latter, and not some obscure 19th century naval terminology for confiscating ships, and therefore no offence intended.
I knew that. The sensible thing to do is not to use a term that has a very violent historical meaning for an unrelated topic. Depending on who you talk to and when, you may not get a positive feedback. That was my point.
People in prisons take even less space. Freedom is also is in the equation. A car gives me more choices than a bicycle. If there are too much cars (can happen), perhaps this city is becoming too big. Why live in crowded spaces, if there are many alternatives available?
in the future we have less space per person as there are more people, and politically no-one really wants to talk about population growth or demographics (unless they want to encourage people to breed faster).
the car is obviously superior to the bicycle for the reasons you state, it is also obviously inferior in terms of environmental damage.
In dense urban area, such as Paris, car takes a lot of very precious space.
They also significantly reduce the life expectancy of the other humans in the city, directly (via accidents) or indirectly (via pollution)
It seems to be a good idea to try and limit car usage as much as possible, and doing that implies making other alternatives, such as bike, more practical and pleasant.
Again, this is speaking for dense urban area like Paris. Maybe things are different were you live.
Not if electrical (and also air transportation is the pollution champion – not that we should stop flying). As for space — space is a market product. If space is at premium, people should pay more, e.g., by paid car entrance into downtown.
you're nitpicking at the silly language used by the post. carry on.
also for humans: nitpicking at silly language, humour, reclaimed wood tables, mime, tax loss harvesting, cluster bombs, mirin, brown-coal-fueled power stations, group theory, punctuation, losing the main thread of conversation.
> Best Practice has been established. It's ridiculous to try and reinvent the wheel.
> It's simple if Paris wants it to be.
If the author thinks that the understanding of "Best Practice" is substandard, maybe he should post a link to what he means, instead of leaving the term undefined and then acting smug about it.
Googling "Best Practice bicycle" returns a number of documents from different cities. It's unclear which of these (if any) correspond to the author's idea of "best practice" for cycling infrastructure.
I did find a post by the same author (http://www.copenhagenize.com/2013/04/the-copenhagenize-bicyc...) which advertises itself as a "planning guide", but is actually just a poster made by someone who was apparently more interested in graphic design than in actually conveying information.