5 ms·

A quick note on the bikes: 1) Copenhagen is really, really flat, which makes it easy to bike for everyone. 2) Cars in Denmark have an environmental/luxury tax

A quick note on the bikes: 1) Copenhagen is really, really flat, which makes it easy to bike for everyone. 2) Cars in Denmark have an environmental/luxury tax of over 100%, on top of the 25% VAT, making cars incredibly expensive to buy.

mixmastamyk 9y ago
1) A 21-speed makes almost any hill easy.
- rini17 9y ago
  Nonsense, you must maintain some minimal speed otherwise bike gets unstable.
ssttoo 9y ago
What if you don’t ride a bike, for either physical or whatever reason? Say butt hurts, wind and rain ruin your hair?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Fredej 9y ago
  Pretty good public transportation. Metro, busses and trains will bring you most places. I've lived in Copenhagen for 3 years now and don't own a car. I am not an outlier.
vanderZwan 9y ago
Speaking of the bikes, I'm usually not nationalistic, but the most patriotic thing I ever did as a Dutchman was complain about the bike infrastructure in Copenhagen :P Obviously, this should be taken about as seriously as trash-talking at a sports game. It was fun to provoke my Danish friends. Having said that, I sincerely wasn't impressed at the time; it was my first time living abroad, and later I realised that Groningen, with its car-free city centre, is bit exceptional. However, Copenhagen does annoy me a bit with their PR machine (although not much more than any other European capital city, I suppose). For example, take this list of "20 most bike friendly cities in the world of 2017" published in the Lonely Planet[0]. I'm still impressed they printed the following paragraphs unironically: > Unsurprisingly, Copenhagen came out on top as the best city in the world for cycling, while the results also saw a selection of global destinations shifting position. Now in its fourth year, the index was released by urban design consultancy Copenhagenize. > (skipping Copenhagen on nr 1 and Utrecht on nr 2) > 3: Amsterdam. The index states that Amsterdam remains the most amazing city in the world for cycling, securing the highest in the baseline score in 2017. However, it came in third position due to the fact that it did not score bonus points that reflect the dynamics in the city moving forward. So a design consultancy tasked with promoting Copenhagen as a bike-friendly city publishes a list of "most bike friendly cities" in 2017, and then puts Copenhagen on top because it scores bonus points for things that will happen in the future. This is about as unbiased as when the car industry ghost-wrote all those news-articles about jaywalking early last century. Well, regarding those "dynamics moving forward": there is so much bike traffic in cities in the Netherlands that we're experimenting with funnel-shaped bike crossings that make better use of the swarm -like movements of groups of bicycles[1]. I haven't seen those in Copenhagen when I visited it a few weekends ago. And then it still makes no sense that Amsterdam has "the best baseline score", because if you ask any Dutch person if Amsterdam is the most bike-friendly city in the country and they will laugh at you. This includes people from Amsterdam. Having said all that, I am glad that the Danes, and cities in the Nordic countries in general, are doing their best to become more bike-friendly. On a more global scale I hope the rise of small electric motors will help with the problem of elevated terrain, which you rightfully point out as a problem anywhere outside of countries like Denmark or the Netherlands. [0] https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/25/cycling-europe-best-cities-2017/ https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/25/cycling-europe-... [1] https://vimeo.com/217846328 https://vimeo.com/217846328
- henrikschroder 9y ago
  I have some friends in Stockholm who have bought electric cargo-bikes, and they love them. They're perfect for the "I'm just going to pop down to the store", or "I'm dropping the kids off at daycare" situations. So one funny offshoot of batteries getting better for electric cars, is that they're now small enough and powerful enough for bikes.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  > there is so much bike traffic in cities in the Netherlands that we're experimenting with funnel-shaped bike crossings That's a neat solution, but I don't think Copenhagen has the same need. There are places with as many bicycles, but these also have more road space for them. There are similarly narrow roads, but there are other roads and cyclists spread across all of them. Rotterdam should be more directly comparable with Copenhagen; a harbour but a lot fewer canals within the city. Anyway, the biggest difference I noticed in the Netherlands is there's more often a kerb between the bike lane and the cars. Also, outside of towns the provision is better; there are more inter-town paths along roads, and paved paths through forests etc where there is no car road.

mixmastamyk 9y ago

1) A 21-speed makes almost any hill easy.

rini17 9y ago
Nonsense, you must maintain some minimal speed otherwise bike gets unstable.

ssttoo 9y ago

What if you don’t ride a bike, for either physical or whatever reason? Say butt hurts, wind and rain ruin your hair?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Fredej 9y ago
Pretty good public transportation. Metro, busses and trains will bring you most places. I've lived in Copenhagen for 3 years now and don't own a car. I am not an outlier.

vanderZwan 9y ago

Speaking of the bikes, I'm usually not nationalistic, but the most patriotic thing I ever did as a Dutchman was complain about the bike infrastructure in Copenhagen :P Obviously, this should be taken about as seriously as trash-talking at a sports game. It was fun to provoke my Danish friends. Having said that, I sincerely wasn't impressed at the time; it was my first time living abroad, and later I realised that Groningen, with its car-free city centre, is bit exceptional. However, Copenhagen does annoy me a bit with their PR machine (although not much more than any other European capital city, I suppose). For example, take this list of "20 most bike friendly cities in the world of 2017" published in the Lonely Planet[0]. I'm still impressed they printed the following paragraphs unironically: > Unsurprisingly, Copenhagen came out on top as the best city in the world for cycling, while the results also saw a selection of global destinations shifting position. Now in its fourth year, the index was released by urban design consultancy Copenhagenize. > (skipping Copenhagen on nr 1 and Utrecht on nr 2) > 3: Amsterdam. The index states that Amsterdam remains the most amazing city in the world for cycling, securing the highest in the baseline score in 2017. However, it came in third position due to the fact that it did not score bonus points that reflect the dynamics in the city moving forward. So a design consultancy tasked with promoting Copenhagen as a bike-friendly city publishes a list of "most bike friendly cities" in 2017, and then puts Copenhagen on top because it scores bonus points for things that will happen in the future. This is about as unbiased as when the car industry ghost-wrote all those news-articles about jaywalking early last century. Well, regarding those "dynamics moving forward": there is so much bike traffic in cities in the Netherlands that we're experimenting with funnel-shaped bike crossings that make better use of the swarm -like movements of groups of bicycles[1]. I haven't seen those in Copenhagen when I visited it a few weekends ago. And then it still makes no sense that Amsterdam has "the best baseline score", because if you ask any Dutch person if Amsterdam is the most bike-friendly city in the country and they will laugh at you. This includes people from Amsterdam. Having said all that, I am glad that the Danes, and cities in the Nordic countries in general, are doing their best to become more bike-friendly. On a more global scale I hope the rise of small electric motors will help with the problem of elevated terrain, which you rightfully point out as a problem anywhere outside of countries like Denmark or the Netherlands. [0] https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/25/cycling-europe-best-cities-2017/ https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/25/cycling-europe-... [1] https://vimeo.com/217846328 https://vimeo.com/217846328

henrikschroder 9y ago
I have some friends in Stockholm who have bought electric cargo-bikes, and they love them. They're perfect for the "I'm just going to pop down to the store", or "I'm dropping the kids off at daycare" situations. So one funny offshoot of batteries getting better for electric cars, is that they're now small enough and powerful enough for bikes.
Symbiote 9y ago
> there is so much bike traffic in cities in the Netherlands that we're experimenting with funnel-shaped bike crossings That's a neat solution, but I don't think Copenhagen has the same need. There are places with as many bicycles, but these also have more road space for them. There are similarly narrow roads, but there are other roads and cyclists spread across all of them. Rotterdam should be more directly comparable with Copenhagen; a harbour but a lot fewer canals within the city. Anyway, the biggest difference I noticed in the Netherlands is there's more often a kerb between the bike lane and the cars. Also, outside of towns the provision is better; there are more inter-town paths along roads, and paved paths through forests etc where there is no car road.