https://live.staticflickr.com/3662/3465284112_5aab494014_b.j...
A transporter bike can carry 2-3 kids easily. It's the most convenient, cheap and healthy option. As soon as the kids are old enough they get their own bike.
Of course, it's convenient to have access to a car a couple of times a month. But definitely not on a daily basis.
This is exactly how many parents in Copenhagen drive their kids around. I would say that around half of all young parents in Copenhagen get a transporter bike like this one.
We were leaving Copenhagen for America shortly after our youngest was born but otherwise we would have biked the kids around as well.
Bottom-line: some cities can never be be great for bikes. But most can but just aren't.
They usually go 15km/h or even slower (presumably due to the extra weight and/or overprotective new parents), and they're so wide that they take up the whole lane, preventing you from overtaking them. And since we usually have grade-separated bike lanes here (supposedly the holy grail, according to HN!) you can't even spill into the car lane temporarily.
This is a problem with lanes that are too small. An effect of giving most space to cars and sharing the left-overs between bikes and people walking.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Dronning...
You can easily ride 3 bikes next to each other (and also four if you want). A single slow transporter won't block the traffic on wide lanes like this.
There are few things that make Copenhagen attractive to own a Christiania bike:
1- Very flat city and mild climate, although wet sometimes. 2- The city if fairly small geographically. 3- Public transit is a bit slow. 4- Very high taxes on cars. When I compare to Malmö, I have the impression most people there own cars. 5- Vast majority of people I know who live outside Copenhagen main neighborhoods own a car. Bearing in mind that outside Copenhagen isn't that far in distance but enough to degrade commute and life style without a car.