Copenhagenize

This guy works full time on getting cities cycling http://www.copenhagenize.com/

> That doesn't stop bicyclists at all. It seems to stop at least a number of them, even in places like Denmark. Look at the answers to this question, "Do Danes ride a bike in heavy rain?"[1]: > Yes, though fewer will than in nice weather. > Bus fill up more then usual in rain, though Or this blogpost about people from Copenhagen biking through the winter[2]: > As mentioned before, 80% of Copenhageners cycle through the winter. That number is surely lower when we have hard winters with snowstorm after snowstorm, but the numbers are still impressive. And keep in mind the number we'd be interested in would be lower - not just how many people generally cycle throughout the winter (which seems to be ~80%), but how many of that 80% still choose to cycle on particularly cold or snowy winter days. So even if we could have infrastructure on par with Copenhagen, and even if we get a corresponding cultural shift (neither of these are easy or quick tasks), we would still need the other forms of transportation infrastructure to be able to handle the spillover that occurs when large amount of bikers don't feel like biking. [1] https://www.quora.com/Do-Danes-ride-a-bike-in-heavy-rain [2] http://www.copenhagenize.com/2011/01/cycling-in-winter-in-copenhagen.h…

> 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-bicycle-plannin… 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.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, these are used all over the city to, well, deliver cargo. Then, annually they have a fun cargo-bike race called "Svajerløb" [0] The event is based on traditional races that took place between the 1930s and 1960s. In the race, riders typically complete four laps - the first lap ridden with an empty cargo bike, then stopping to load up their bikes with cargo before completing three more laps with the full load. [1] It's super fun. [0] https://www.facebook.com/Svajerloeb/ [1] https://copenhagenize.com/2017/10/arrange-svajerlb-cargo-bike-race.htm…

Here in Copenhagen, the city has narrow versions of the usual equipment for clearing bike lanes. The bike lanes are cleared before the car lanes! http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/ultimate-bike-lane-snow-clearance…

Does the fact that they don't mean that they shouldn't? Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia did a study and concluded that wearing helmets in cars would prevent many serious injuries: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-science-for-mot…

The likelihood of death is proportional to speed [1], and the speed is lower in the urban cores. The math is super simple, and let's stop trying to justify bad urbanistic (essentially, political) decisions blaming it on the bad fate instead. [1] http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/11/the-85th-percentile-folly.html

Much of Scandinavia (at least Denmark and Sweden) manages this by having small snow-removal vehicles specifically for bike lanes: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/ultimate-bike-lane-snow-clearance… In fact in Copenhagen at least the bike lanes are cleared much more reliably than the road. The city owns many more of these bike lane snow-removal vehicles (which are small and fairly cheap) and only a few of the big road-plowing trucks. Salting the bicycle lanes also takes less salt, so tends to be done more readily.

By physically separating bicycles and automobiles? A perspective from a writer who favors separating bikes and cars: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/07/vehicular-cyclists-secret-sect.ht…

Thoughts: 1. Where will the energy come from? 2. While electric cars will make the air in cities better, they won't reduce the needed space (for driving AND parking), and they won't make life more secure for pedestrians and cyclists. 3. In our courtyard, I usually don't find a place to lock my bicycle because they removed some of the bicycle stands in favor of creating some private terraces - this should be forbidden 4. Please concentrate on electric cars for car sharing See also http://www.copenhagenize.com/2016/10/electric-cars-where-will-energy-c…

"vastly worse wearing a helmet, at least the SA full-face helmets" Which is why the research into this topic focuses more on headbands, which mostly protect the forehead, than the entire head. See http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-science-for-mot… for a summary of Australian research and a sketch of the head gear. They quote: > But more impressive were the estimates of introducing protective headwear for car occupants. The authors of the report estimated that the annual reduction in harm would be in the order of $380 million. The benefit of padding the head is that the head is protected from strikes with unpadded automotive components, exterior objects and in vehicles that predate any eventual introduction of padded interiors."

Walking is pretty dangerous: you could be walking and spontaneously stumble, or slip on wet leaves, and clip your temple on a fire hydrant. That's it for you! Walking is quite dangerous, and is in fact has the highest rate of injuries and fatalities per mile traveled. That's mostly because pedestrians get hit by cars, but that's surely an even better reason to get pedestrians to wear helmets. What if you get hit by a car while walking? As for motorists: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-science-for-mot…

> 20k car and you need to fork out 1400 for tags. If that shocks you, you've never been to Denmark where you pay $36k in tax on top of the $20k for the car [0]. [0] http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/10/danish-180-tax-on-cars-is-rather.…

NYC might get more snow than Copenhagen, but there is definitely snow here as well, and it doesn't heavily impact bike commuting. The solution is just to clear the bike lanes of snow, and salt to keep them from icing. They have these little machines with rotating brooms that drive down the lanes regularly: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/ultimate-bike-lane-snow-clearance…

Driver awareness is huge: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/11/more-bikes-means-less-accidents.h…

Yeah, but a single bus is the equivalent of many cars. http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/02/street-cars-named-desire.html

I remember reading about a study (can't dig it up now) that said that drivers drive on average 1 meter closer to cyclists who are wearing helmets vs. those without. Maybe that's why you feel safer. And some evangelizing against helmet laws: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/08/helmets-or-health.html

Copenhagen has had bicycle highways for a while now. http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/04/launching-copenhagens-bicycle.htm… The elevated highway that mjn mentioned is only a few hundred metres long while the new highways have 300Km planned.

When the countryside is flat and good infrastructure exists at the same time, the winter is not that big issue. It's not ideal, but it's not stopping most of the people either. For example people in Sweden have no problem with it: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/winter-cycling-in-umea-sweden.htm… The issues of winter cycling are quite small compared to issues accociated with changing the cycling culture and building the infrastructure. So I suppose if Americans made their "flat enough cities" bike friendly, they would cycle even during winter, as other nations with good cycling conditions do.