Recently the first ’green wave’ bike route has been inaugurated to the satisfaction of 30,000 cyclists, who use the bike lane on one of Copenhagen’s busiest streets, Nørrebrogade.
“My ambition is to turn Copenhagen into the best bicycle capital in the World. An obvious step is to regulate traffic to the benefit of the Copenhagen cyclists,” says Technical and Environmental Mayor [?] of Copenhagen, Klaus Bondam.
The green wave is the first of its kind and traffic lights are adjusted to give cyclists a continuous ride if they travel 20 km/h. “It is a rational and sensible speed to pedal, as both children and elderly can keep the pace,” says Klaus Bondam.
The green wave stretches over a distance of 2.5 km and it will only take 7½ minutes to travel the distance whereas longer before. The green wave also means that it does not pay off to travel faster as the cyclist eventually will encounter red light.
Image by Rutgen Spoelstra
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you Pandabonium!
I have Friends in Denmark and the make me extremely jealous every time I receive photos from them!
I think the difference between the Danish attitude to cycling and ours has something to do with their (and the rest of Scandinavia’s) concept of natural living and life in general. OK, so Denmark is flatter than Britain (though large parts of Britain are flat compared with Norway, most of Germany, Italy…) but it’s obvious to them that to travel one or two miles you either walk or cycle – even if it’s raining, and they all have outdoor gear at hand. We, on the other hand, find the Sunday papers are kept dryer in the car. God bless them; long may they show the rest of us how it’s done.
Happy 2007 from Edinburgh!
Look forward to visiting Kobenhavn again. Contrast this to the ‘lets put bike paths in after everything else has been finished’ approach too often seen here!
We toured from Gothenborg to Roskilde in 2001 – my daughter on the tandem and my wife solo. Jutland isn’t flat despite what some people think!
Staying at the hostels was great. Roskilde has architect designed bike storage which opens with room swipe card.
We plan to go back.
Sounds to me like a good way top increase pollution – make all the cars stop then start again.
Ho-hum.
I always think that the bike lanes in London are a bit of an afterthought aswell. Mostly they are full of glass, razor sharp peices of broken bumper and drainage shores. Shame really.
I wonder what the obesity rates are in Copenhagen compared to here?