What the world can learn from Copenhagen's cycling revolution | Hacker News Reader

What the world can learn from Copenhagen's cycling revolution

theprogressplaybook.com

4 pointsjseliger8 comments

> “The city was close to bankruptcy in 1993, but it still wanted to promote development, so it had to go with cheapest option available, which was cycling infrastructure,” Kabell says.

THIS. The cost of a lane-mile of pavement for bicyclists is vastly lower than the cost of a line-mile of pavement for cars & trucks. Mostly, that's because the 99th percentile weight of bikes is maybe 350 lbs. Vs. the 99th percentile weight of cars & trucks is more like 70,000 lbs. And pavement damage from traffic is proportional to the 4th power of the weight.

>the cost to society of trips by car is close to one euro per kilometre

I would like to understand what this means.

I don't have any idea if it's accurate or not but the implications make me think it requires some explanation.

If the true cost of travel by car is about one euro (currently $1.08?) per km, then - using ~4.7L / 100 km mileage of my car - by my arithmetic gas should cost on the order of 20 euros per liter to internalize the costs to society.

Some very brief research indicates to me that Danes price gas in DKK, but converted it's around 2 euros a liter.

So is Danish gas underpriced by as much as 10 times?

I think the mentioned report is "Transport transitions in Copenhagen: Comparing the cost of cars and bicycles" at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091...

Along these lines, in a less scholarly form:

"Cost-benefit of cycling infrastructure" - https://cyclingsolutions.info/cost-benefit-of-cycling-infras...

"Making the Economic Case for Cycling" - https://www.itdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CC_MAKING-TH...

A related paper is "The social cost of automobility, cycling and walking in the European Union", https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

That paper has a YouTube version on the CityNerd channel, "Cars Are A Disaster For Society -- Here Are the Numbers " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp75-46PnMY

Thank you for all those links. I trust you that they support the "€1 / km" figure.

If you don't bother to make even a quick scan then I question your earlier statement that you "would like to understand what this means".

You misunderstood my comment, if you think I was asking for a reference for 1 euro/km.

The question is whether 20 euros per liter is obviously looney tunes to any HN passers-by. Or if "everyone" knows it is in fact what gasoline should cost.

[Edited for clarity]

It's obviously looney tunes because many of the overall costs - insurance, noise pollution, car depreciation, the societal cost of road building and maintenance, etc. - also apply to electric vehicles.

According to the finance ministry’s calculations, the cost to society of trips by car is close to one euro per kilometre. On the other hand, every kilometre travelled by bike yields societal gains of 60 euro cents thanks to the health benefits of cycling, transport efficiency gains, and lower infrastructure spending requirements.

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