In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway | Hacker News Reader

In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway

nytimes.com

172 pointsmkramer05132 comments

Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city of cold, icy winters, is arguably the number-one bicycle city in the United States,

http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m...

and one feature of bicycling in Minneapolis and its suburbs is an ongoing effort to make regional bicycle trails, some by converting old railroad railbeds into bicycle trails, including bicycle superhighways.

http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/midtown_gree...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Lake_Trail

My wife regularly bicycle commutes (she is doing so as I type this) and our whole family takes recreational trips into neighboring towns along dedicated bicycle trails. We reduce our car driving by hundreds of miles per year by using the city trail system (combining mostly walkers, and in winter skiers, with quite a few year-round bicyclists) and the regional trail system (combining mostly recreational bicyclists with some year-round bicycle commuters and some walkers).

The regional trail system is becoming more and more extensive

http://www.minnehahamedia.com/gw/twin_cities_reg_trails/inde...

and is projected to ring the entire metropolitan area with dedicated bicycle trails in the next decade.

Minneapolis was very lucky: they inherited a large number of extremely high quality freight rail right-of-ways as the industry moved out of the city center. These are perfect for conversion in to bike paths: few hills, and routed to minimize grade crossings (and hence traffic lights). I wish they were everywhere, but building bike routes of this quality in other cities will be much harder.

Denmark seems to have built the "superhighway" from scratch, which is pretty cool. It also seems to have only cost $1.5 million. Since the average freeway costs about $1 million per mile, WHY DON'T WE HAVE MORE BIKEWAYS!?

sorry, lost my composure there.

This will be awesome if it's ever completed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Greenway

The East Coast Greenway, or ECG, is a project to create a nearly 3,000-mile (4,800 km) urban path linking the major cities of the Atlantic coast of the United States, from Calais, Maine, to Key West, Florida, for non-motorized human transportation.

I can attest that the part near Raleigh, NC is very nice.

A freeway costs $1M/mi in the middle of nowhere it costs $30-50M/mi in an urban area and $5-6Bn/mi in Boston!

So we're probably better off waiting for a 1/4 mile highway contract than trying to build the next Instagram.

DC/MD/VA have a lot of verrry long bike trails, and it makes a good deal of sense to use them instead of fighting the beltway traffic, if you live a certain distance away and have showers at work. But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there? Spray on deodorant and feel gross for the rest of the day?

"But if you don't have showers at work, what do you do once you get there?"

I don't live there, but my solution in a similar situation revolved around the exercise club two blocks from work. On bike days you only use the club for its shower, on non-bike days (winter, etc) you exercise at the club (lift weights, mostly).

Also, hard as it might be to believe, bicycling more energy efficient than walking at the same speed, so once you're in shape, going slow and enjoying the ride is not sweaty, its possible to go slightly faster than walking while generating less heat than a normal walk. Depending on your local weather, a leisurely walk outdoors often results in no sweating at all.

Summer weather in the DC area is such that many days you can soak through your clothing sitting on a park bench in the shade.

I don't have an overly long commute, but enough to make me fairly sweaty. There is no shower at my work, but one of the restrooms is a single with a lockable door. I always bring a towel and a change of clothes and give myself a light spit bath in key areas with wet paper towels and towel dry everywhere before putting on deodorant.

It's not as good as a shower, but I don't smell and I don't feel sticky after. I also feel great and refreshed and not in need of a cup of coffee to wake me up.

Pace yourself. It's pretty hard to do, but it is possible. On a hot day, all bets are off though.

I found that it's much easier to pace myself on my new extremely unsporty bike (basically an Omafiets). You sit upright, and it feels more like joyride than the urban rally it was before.

I grew up there, and before I got my driver's license, I biked everywhere. It was less than a 5 minute ride to the W&OD, which is a long, bike trail. It even hooks up with another trail (don't remember the name) that went to Ballston, so I could visit a friend I had that lived there. It was a 30 mile ride, with a total of about 1 mile not on a paved, well maintained bike trail.

I was in HS, so my solution for the shower thing was:

1) Gym showers at school (duh)

2) Anywhere else, I usually had a friend within a mile of it, since so much is mixed zoning, that would let me use their shower.

Cycle at a normal pace? When walking you can run or you can walk. The same applies to cycling. Everybody in the netherlands does this, and the same probably applies to denmark.

The weather here's been in the 90's (fahrenheit) for the past month or two. It's hard not to sweat.

It's fine if you wear wicking clothing. Riding means air is passing past you fairly quickly and you stay pretty dry. Sweat only hangs around and starts to smell if you're wearing something unsuitable like cotton.

Or if the relative humidity is much over 80%, like it is almost daily in the summers in this region.

Portland doesn't have the luxury of decommissioned railways, so uses some different methods that I think accomplish the same thing. Many of the side streets around here have been converted to "neighborhood greenways" (they used to be called "bike boulevards" but I agree that that didn't really suggest shared use). All you do is make it inconvenient for cars to drive at high speeds by installing mild speed bumps, turn-only intersections, etc, and remove as many stop signs in the greenway direction as you can. Doing this turns these roads effectively into local-access-only routes for cars and there's very little traffic. My bike "path" to and from work is about 8 miles of 35'-wide, paved road. It's very safe too, since you're not in the "door zone" of parked cars in a bike lane and also not so separated from traffic that you are a surprise at intersections like some new bike lanes that are located on the other side of parked cars. Not to mention the low cost.

The former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, has done remarkable things for that city.

Among them, a dedicated bike lane/walking system that loops around most of the city.

http://www.streetfilms.org/lessons-from-bogota/

http://thisbigcity.net/photo-essay-bogota-and-the-bicycle-a-...

“Do we dare create a transport system giving priority to the needs of the poor? Or are we really trying to solve the traffic jams of the upper income people? That is really the true issue that exist?”

“God made us walking animals – pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy.”

He is quite a character, featured in the maker of Helvetica's "Urbanized"

http://www.pps.org/reference/epenalosa-2/

I used to bike to work in my suit in Copenhagen. Kids are driven to nursery and kindergarten on bikes like this: http://www.christianiabikes.com/

In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues.

But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America. Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77 degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.

In LA temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees in the winter and are rarely above 85 in the summer. Yet LA is jam packed with cars and features traffic jams at any time of day.

I think LA is a perfect city for bike streets. There are underground gangs of byciclist in LA that periodically take over large streets by swarming them with thousands of bikes and completely shutting down car traffic. I am sure they do this to give city planners a clue, but the clues are slow to come.

Yes, LA - and especially SF - has nice climate for biking.

But those hills in SF! my poor knees hurt just thinking about them.

Not to mention these cities and neighborhoods are very pedestrian-friendly as it is, since they were around long, long before cars were invented.

After one year of living abroad in Tel Aviv people here in Germany constantly ask me what I miss the most.

They never expect 'riding the bike to work' as answer.

I had the privilege of being able to reach work by a very, very nice ride through a park, along a river. No cars. Showers provided in the office. In Germany I used to drive 1.6km to work with a car and I usually got up around 10. In Israel I drove 6.5-7km on a bike and usually just fell out of bed around 7:30-8:00. The quality of life that this tiny change added is mind blowing.

Interesting, up to the end of your comment I was sure you were saying how you were driving a car in Israel and biking in Germany :)

I'm an Israeli currently living in Vienna, I don't bike myself but it's very common here & there are many bike paths. Also - everybody I know in Israel owns a car, and almost nobody I know in Vienna does.

See the other reply I did: I didn't want to own/use a car in the Tel Aviv traffic (both because of jams, lack of parking and the general madness on the streets). Riding a bike was very common among my friends and coworkers there and while I was living there a couple of big bicycle projects were completed (for example the whole promenade from the north of Tel Aviv to Yafo is now having a nice special bike lane).

Yep, there are lots of issues still, but I think that Tel Aviv is actually a decent place to bike (try not to get killed on the roads..) and constantly improving.

Cologne is - worse (bike lanes suck, underground that actually runs overground in places, on the street -> dangerous for bikes because you can easily end up in the tracks, usually rainy and some time of the year brings ice and potentially snow, work places aren't used to offer a shower because .. no one needs one).

    Yep, there are lots of issues still, but I think 
    that Tel Aviv is actually a decent place to bike 
    (try not to get killed on the roads..) and 
    constantly improving.

Yes, if everyone you know also lives in the city (Tel Aviv only houses ~400k out of the >3m residents of Greater Tel Aviv, and anecdotaly most of the people I know there moved out to the suburbs by the time they turned ~30).

So I think it depends a lot on the kind of company you keep - in Vienna I only meet other people that are around my age/situation (20s-30s, mostly non-married with no kids) where as in Tel Aviv I'd have a lot of family living in nearby suburbia (almost all of my relatives live in greater Tel Aviv and they are all married with kids, which means they all drive).

I assume that would be exactly the opposite for you, assuming you are native to the German city you'd live in.

If I was living as an expat with no kids in Tel Aviv probably most of everyone I'd keep in touch with would also live in the city[1] & biking would be a lot more practical.

[1] And I didn't really mention that Israelis generally marry younger than (non-mediterranean) Europeans & much more likely to have kids & live in suburbia at/around my age (29).

BTW does Cologne just suck in terms of mass transit, or is there another reason why you didn't use it? I can't imagine anyone driving 1.6km in a car in Vienna, Berlin or Zurich.

The magic word is..

lazyness

It's interesting how a city shapes peoples' needs.

My stepfather works for the U.N., he's currently in Vienna.

When he was in Canada he had a gas-guzzling SUV, here in Uruguay he had a diesel BMW, but now in Vienna for the first time he doesn't own a car.. because he doesn't need one.

The person didn't change, the environment did.

but to be fair, it was probably more of a the-scenery-was-nice-kind-of-thing, right? because at least in the cities that i lived in in germany (freiburg, stuttgart, berlin), going around by bike was also way quicker and more convenient then public transportation or cars.

No, the factors that lead to my decision (and ultimately: a better daily life)

- I hate the traffic in Tel Aviv. It works, it's bearable, but coming from a German Autobahn it's just messy, slow, loud and unpredictable

- I had the fortune of choosing an apartment with an excellent connection to work (and < 100m away from the beach), by accident (I didn't explore the way to work before signing the apartment contract)

- Lots of light, warm weather 11 month of the year (locals would disagree, I've seen gas powered heaters outside of restaurants when it was 18-20 degrees aka "t-shirt and shorts" weather), rain only in 1-2 month of the year: Perfect for bikes

- There _is_ no usable public transportation, so bikes are actually quite important and well-used (taxis are ~cheap~ and there are bus lines, but those won't run on shabbat and are .. special)

I don't understand this part: "(the region) has provided $1.6 million for the superhighway project. "

How is it possible to build 14 miles of this bike highway for this little money? (I'm an American). Here, you'd spend this amount just on "feasibility study" and buying off the inevitable opposition.

It wasn't "built". Almost all of it was already there. If was made into a route, had an orange line painted on it and (sometimes this seems like the most important part when dealing with bicycle projects in Denmark) marketed heavily.

One of the comments on the linked danish article is a woman who says she's been doing that commute for years - a long a different route that is shorter and worked very well for her, so she doesn't really see the point.

My understanding was that much of the money was spent improving already existing trails (and perhaps funding winter maintenance).

Edit: Also, I think that was one source of funds, not the total cost of the project.

Maybe the region only provided part of the total project budget?

As another data point, a somewhat similar but larger project -- about 100km bike highway in an urbanised region -- in Germany is probably not going to happen due to costs of >110 million EUR. That's approximately 10x as expensive per km as the project in Copenhagen, if the $1.4 million is the total project budget after all.

$100k/mile seems more reasonable given typical suburban rd pricing (~$200k/mile). Hugely dependent on how much the right of way has to be refrigged first I guess.

I am not sure what the funding is, but Bike roads are much much cheaper than car roads. What makes a road expensive is how much weight it can handle, and when you move from a car to a bike you remove at least 95% of the weight the road has to handle.

You also save a lot of money because the road does not have to handle 80 mph speeds. Car roads get destroyed when wheels slam into small bumps or holes in the asphalt at very high speeds.

So while it may all look like the same asphalt bike roads are much much cheaper to both build and maintain.

Therefore, even if you never get on a bike you should be making your city build bike roads because, if other people chose to bike instead of driving, this will mean lower costs to the city and less taxes for you.

If you click through to the Danish news article, it is rather critical. The title says "Is the new super cycle-path really super?" and there is a video of riding through it. Turns out it is just normal cycle paths that have been there for years it seems. They just made a route and painted an orange line to mark it.

That said, Danish cycle paths are first class to begin with.

Could still be worth it if lots of people who didn't cycle suddenly see this and give it a try.

It's still better value than most government adverts telling you to do something!

Hmm, cycling in Copenhagen is the default mode of transportation. You can't live there for more than three days and not be aware that there are cycle paths everywhere.

You wouldn't think there were many people that didn't know smoking is bad for you - but it doesn't stop the govt spending millions telling you!

It's still worth advertising that there is a fast/safe/easy cycle route between A-B.

The city here (N. America) does a good (well cheap) job of marking certain streets as preferred cycle routes. These are normally one block off the main traffic street and mean that all the cyclists are concentrated together into a sufficent mass that they dominate the road and drivers know to be more carefull.

Just came home from work on my bicycle in Copenhagen. Didn't know we had superhighway's. I understand the effort of trying to make the long distance routes more pleasant, though.

We have another problem however, which is that the inner city is very crowded in rush hour. I hope the expand the high traffic lanes to become even wider at some point. Currently all lanes are double-lanes, but triple lanes would be really nice in choke-points. This might sound stupid to someone which doesn't even have bike lanes in their city, but this is an actual problem in Copenhagen. It's not so much about being able to go fast, but also about safety.

One of the women in that photo is using her mobile phone while she cycles along right next to a bunch of other people. That is so dangerous. It's behaviour like this (and the inability to cycle in a straight-ish line) that makes me hate biking in groups of commuters, like those riding down Market St in SF.

How dangerous? I think it all depends on how well the average drive can ride in a straight line. Having a bike with a larger slant in the front fork (Wikipedia calls them roadster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle), but does not realize that 'keeps a straight line easier' is one of its most important assets) helps tremendously there.

For examples of 'safe' use of a mobile phone while cycling, see http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/

It does relate to your ability to bike in a straight line, but the other danger is that you're not looking at what other people are doing.

Relative to their width people on bikes move a lot more side-to-side than a car does - it's not uncommon to see a person on a bike weaving a couple of feet in either direction as they pedal. If cars did this the lanes would have to be 2-3 times the width of the car on either side to accomodate the movement.

Further, having one hand off the handlebars massively diminishes your ability to react safely and accurately.

Granted, the worst that might happen in a bike-on-bike crash is a broken bone or concussion, but for people who aren't at peak health (or who just get really unlucky) this could be a significant, even life-changing event.

Yeah, it definitely is not for everybody, everywhere, every time :-)

I just wanted to point out that danger depends on lots of things.

Many people on the photos I referenced probably are well on their way to or over the magical 10.000 hours of practice riding a bicycle. Most car drivers, similarly, will have lots of experience driving in traffic with cyclists. Also, if you look closely, you will notice those not on bike paths often are in the middle of a road that is not wide enough for a car to pass them. Cars, in that location, do not go faster than bikes. It also does not look particularly busy there.

Wow, first thing that jumped out at me from those pictures was that all the bicycles had at least a top chain cover, and most had no exposed chain around the crank at all. That has to account for a lot of the "riding in formalwear" since pants and dresses can get caught in the chain really easily otherwise.

In Tokyo I've seen people cycling while:

    - texting
    - holding up an umbrella. Very common.
    - smoking (exercising is good for you, I guess it cancels out the health hazards of smoking...)
    - "walking" (cycling?) a dog with a leash.

I've seen each of the above multiple times. It's all the more dangerous because the vast majority ride on the sidewalk.

And once I saw a guy leisurely riding on the road while reading a manga. God, I wish I had taken a pic.

The thing is: the worst thing that can happen when you fall off your bike on a bike lane is maybe a broken bone. Compare that to cars...

If you are distracted by the phone in a car at 70mph you have covered 32metres if you do the same on a bike like that women's - you have covered about 2 bike lengths!

ps Don't answer your phone in the pelaton at the start of a Tour de France stage!

I've thought about how many more places I would be willing to bike to if I could just hop on the freeway with my bike. We have an event every year where they allow you to, and it's a tease.

I'm a regular commuter cyclist (Halifax, NS; now Ottawa, ON) and how I wish I could ride on such a highway! Even the best cycling lanes I have experienced are punctuated by stops, intersections and red lights. When you're cruising at 35km/h, there is nothing worse than having to come to a complete stop.

More of this please.

See the famous http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-mo... for the UK's worst cycle paths

I used to bike about 20 miles a week, and I really miss it, since I moved to a more suburb area where it is no longer practical. Projects like these sound awesome, and make me wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.

Try doubling the price of gas and slap a 180% tax on all new nonelectric cars.

Danes are not that much more interested in protecting the environment than the rest of the world -- we just can't afford cars.

> wonder what it would take to get something like it started here in the US.

I've been reading these discussions on the internet for a while and I've been seeing a willingness and perhaps even a desire to excuse the status quo as a large factor. Bring up the stereotypical Copenhagen and Amsterdam and immediately people post reasons why North America can't be like that: the hills and the climate and the distances and so on.

It strikes me as very un-American in a way - challenging land and climate and large distances haven't stopped Americans from expanding into the desert southwest or paving interstate freeways through the Rockies or building air force bases in Alaska tundra but they do apparently stop people from getting around on a bicycle. For every hilly Seattle and San Francisco there's a flat Midwest town (or a flatter route through a hilly city that could benefit from infrastructure even if other routes are not feasible) and for every location with a hot summer and cold winter there's mild northeast and northwest. By some of the criteria advanced, small towns in New England should be bike infrastructure havens, which they are decidedly not.

It's one thing if you consciously don't want bike infrastructure, it's another to throw up your arms and declare it'll never work there without trying.

Well first of all if you try biking through the desert southwest on a hot day you are likely to die. Imagine crossing hundreds of miles of desert in 115 degree heat. Where do you get your water?

Secondly, climbing the Rockies on a bike is beyond most people's level of fitness. I would say only experienced road riders would be able to accomplish that.

Thirdly...crossing the Alaskan tundra on bike would be nearly impossible without specialized gear. Standard bike tires would not be able to cross the snow/ice without sinking. Also the consistent freezing temperatures necessitate specialized clothing which is not conducive to riding.

I can easily see why those three landscapes might "stop people from getting around on a bicycle".

These were examples of what people can do when they set their minds to it.

Of course people won't be commuting to work across hundreds of miles of desert or mountains or tundra. They don't do that in cars either.

There are, however, fairly basic ways of making normal people commutes more bearable on a bicycle: dedicated paths shaded by a tree row, evenly-spaced water fountains, hedge rows for wind-blown snow blocking, reliable snow clearing, perhaps escalator-like systems for climbing up hills along highly popular routes.

Cities are trying! In the last 3 years here in Kansas City I have seen a slow but steady change to make the city more bike friendly. But unfortunately it requires more than community interest. The streets here, especially in the city, are not conducive to bikes so it takes time to get the city to approve and implement the appropriate upgrades. But just a few weeks ago we got our first bike share system, Kansas City B Cycle. Change is a comin'!

Some cities have "park & ride" lots 5-10 km from the core, so people living in the suburbs can drive in, park (usually for free), and bike the rest of the way. Calgary has these.

An invasion of Danish vikings?

I've always wondered if we couldn't do an elevated bike trail in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the challenges of doing an elevated freeway or road are the costs associated with supporting vehicles, but a huge number of bikes/pedestrians would not be quite as burdensome. On/off ramps would be a challenge as that is where they would most likely interfere with existing traffic patterns.

The Stevens Creek trail (an old rail bed in parts) is a good example of an urban trail. And of course highway 85 before they officially opened it, it was like four lane bike trail and exceptionally awesome.

do you have any photos of what the 85 bike trail used to look like? i only found some constructions shots at http://www.interstate80.info/85_uc_california_2.html but i'm sure it must've been beautiful.

I am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating pictures show cyclists without helmets or any other form of protective gears.

In Belgium there is a small movement promoting bikes and there are all kind of hipsters, bobo and 50 years old grey hair vegan on fake vintage bikes riding without helmets and without any sense of road conduct. Good bikers wearing yellow jackets and helmets are really rare ; I am beginning to think the formers are ruining the latters's image.

The largest danger in cycling comes from automobiles; Denmark's infrastructure, which keeps cyclists away from automobiles and automobiles at low speeds in shared areas, and their high standards for driver skills and behavior, make their country one of the safest places in the world to bicycle: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cyclists-thre... This safety in numbers declines with every onerous requirement one proposes to ride a bike. Australia has less cyclists & is a more dangerous place to ride on account of a mandatory helmet law: http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/2019/australias-helmet-la...

Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets.

"Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets."

1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country.

2. Wether the accident is the biker's fault or the car driver's fault or anything else you are way better wearing a protective helmet if you fall off your bike. Head trauma is not something to be dismissed on the basis that wearing an helmet isn't mandatory or - gasp - fashionnable.

3. Regarding the yellow jacket: without it most bicylists are simply invisible in night traffic. In broad daylight there are easier to see and thus one can be more cautious around them. Remember that cyclists are "weak" road users.

4. > Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets.

Wearing a helmet and yellow jacket are really good signs that the biker knows what he is doing. Especially in a country (mine) where it is mandatory. Especially in a country (mine) where car culture is overtly agressive towards cyclists.

There is absolutely no reason not to wear protective gear when riding a bike (especially in a city).

Even if there were no cars on the road.

edit: removed personnal rant

> you are way better wearing a protective helmet if you fall off your bike. Head trauma is not something to be dismissed on the basis that wearing an helmet isn't mandatory or - gasp - fashionnable.

You'd probably also be better off wearing a helmet while driving a car if you were in a collision, but that doesn't mean we do. There are comfort tradeoffs, and really I've biked in Amsterdam (which is a bit more sketch in some areas than Copenhagen by the looks of it) and definitely did not feel I need a helmet.

Helmets are for sport racers (they go really fast downhill and collisions are likely) and cyclists who have to mix with automobile traffic or deal with poor quality roads (e.g. storm drains, potholes, etc.)

You're also committing fallacious thinking by arguing for the way something ought to be by appealing to the way it is (i.e. the laws in your country).

> There are comfort tradeoffs, and really I've biked in Amsterdam (which is a bit more sketch in some areas than Copenhagen by the looks of it) and definitely did not feel I need a helmet.

Regarding comfort: from the day I decided to wear an helmet (and it had been a long time I hadn't rode) it only took me 2 trips to feel "naked" without it. Just like I feel uneasy when there are no seatbelts in a car.

> Helmets are for [...] cyclists who have to mix with automobile traffic or deal with poor quality roads (e.g. storm drains, potholes, etc.)

Which is my case in Belgium. However, I still believe that even in a safe environnment such as Amsterdam or Denmark, with or without car on the road, you'd better fall with a helmet than without one.

Sorry again for the fallacy, I just wanted to give more context to how things are here.

On a side note: I remember when helmets weren't mandatory in the "tour de France" and in "Liège Bastogne Liège". I thought it was really weird people were complaining about "the ridiculous helmets" and didn't really fight the safety arguments of pro-helmets.

I strongly feel the bicycle helmet "debate" is almost the same as the one for the car seatbelt made mandatory in the 90's (in Belgium): people were screaming they were all going to get strangulated, that the incomfort would bring more accidents, etc.

You are ignoring the side effects of helmet use.[0] Mandatory helmet use is just as bad as mandatory drug administration when helmets can have lethal side effects.

* The mean motorist passing difference being several centimetres smaller for cyclists wearing helmets - increasing the chance of a collision. [1]

* Mandatory (and increased) helmet use correlates strongly with increased rates of cyclist fatalities. [2]

* Strangulation caused by straps around neck on catching helmet. (There is a mandatory legal disclaimer about this on every helmet in the UK)

* Increased risk of head injury due to increased head diameter

* Increased risk taking by the wearer based on reduced percieved risk

* Reduction in number of cyclists and "safety in numbers" due to making cycling a percieved risky activity.

* Diffuse axonal Injury injury caused by increased friction between helmet and tarmac

I personally do wear a helmet because the road conditions in London are made hazardous by motorists.

Helmet campaigns are really just victim blaming. Motorists kill more young people than aids and malaria combined and somehow society is ok with it.[3]

[0] http://www.ecf.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Cycle-helmets.... [1] http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf [2] http://lh4.ggpht.com/_PK0EOWvC8YI/TIPM2tGiIDI/AAAAAAAAIDs/Xa... [3] http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/05/road-traffic-...

Wear your silly helmet or don't, it's nothing to me. But why the insistence on forcing it on everybody else?

I believe the reasoning was the same as the one that led to the mandatory seatbelt in cars.

There was a study that showed having pedestrians wearing cycle helmets would save 100x as many lives and drivers 10x as many - as making cyclists wear them.

Partly this is because there are a lot more pedestrians/drivers than cyclists but also because above children speed a bike helmet doesn't do much for you. If you are cycling at 20-30mph you need the same helmet as a motorcycle doing the same speed.

ps. this was also before airbags became ubiquitous. a lot of non-seatbelt wearing drivers die of head injuries in common low-speed impacts.

It's true I always wondered why "small motor bike" drivers had such an hardened and heavy helmet compared to "styro-foam carbone fiber" made bike helmet.

I read some the abstract of the studies contradicting the health benefits of a helmet and the studies contradicting those very studies. I am convinced that helmets benefits outweight naked head benefits. The rare case where someone has a neck injury directly because of the helmet seems to be extremely rare.

Making it mandatory will have likely killed more people than leaving it optional - just be aware of that.

How ?

From the wikipedia page regarding the "australian bicycle helmet law" I read this: For example, one recent French study analyzing over 13,000 cyclist casualties during a ten-year period "confirms the protective effect [of helmets] for head and facial injuries," and finds that "the reduction of risk is greater for serious head injuries. The study is inconclusive about the risk for neck injuries."[45] The most widely quoted case-control study, by Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson, reported an 85% reduction in the risk of head injury by using a helmet.[46] It has been suggested that these studies may be fundamentally flawed.[47][48][49][50] [51] [52] Thompson and Thompson have rejected these criticisms.[53] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Case-control_stu...

Are you suggesting something along:

1. Cyclists wearing helmets are prone to take risks because they are wearing helmets ? ;

2. people don't want to ride bikes because they don't want to wear a helmet because they don't like the look of it and as a result of that they might do less exercise activities than if they could have ride helmet free ?

edit: I found this: http://www.cycle-helmets.com/

There are some frightening points being made (and contradictory to my position) but I have some tingling doubts about some. Have to read it with more attention later.

> Are you suggesting something along: > > 1. Cyclists wearing helmets are prone to take risks because they are wearing helmets ? ;

It's a known hypothesis:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_homeostasis

Also...

"Likewise, it has been found that drivers behave less carefully around bicyclists wearing helmets than around unhelmeted riders."

Make helmets mandatory and people choose to take their cars instead of cycle. More cars on the road = more cyclist (and driver and pedestrian) deaths.

Suppose for example that train passengers were required to wear motorbike helmets - would it save lives? Well there has probably been a very rare train accident where somebody died of a head injury. But if all those train passengers decided to drive instead there would be a huge rise in deaths.

Why do you assume they are going to take their cars instead of their bikes ? Public transportation can be as convenient on bike distances.

I am not going to take off my silly hemlet and take more risks so fashionistas can ride their bike.

Did car drivers stop driving cars because seatbelts were made mandatory at some point ?

Anyway, from what I read, I am more at risk with my silly helmet because car drivers think I am safe and more prudent so they take more risks around people like me[1].

So it's a catch-21 or something to me. I'll get back to my car.

Or maybe we should enforce mandatory helmets for car drivers too. Since they _have_ to wear in any case they might stick to bicycle :)

[1] source: those australian articles all around the web

The idea is to persuade car drivers onto bikes - then if they have to wear a helmet they might switch to busses, but it's more likely they would stay in their cars.

I'm not going to take my helmet off either - but if a change in the law converted 10% of the cars passing me to other cycles I would be happier and safer.

>Did car drivers stop driving cars because seatbelts were made mandatory at some point

Unless there was an alternative MORE deadly form of transport they could adopt it doesn't matter. If they said, "I'm not driving with a seatbelt - I will drive my jet fighter to work" it might have had a negative effect on accident rates.

[1] The research was by an ex-collegue of mine at UCL. He also proved that drivers give blonde women more space. Although since he did the field work himself (in a wig) he couldn't discount the chance that car drivers gave more space to very unconvincing transvestites! ;-)

I was just reading that article half an hour ago! http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/overtaking11090...

> 1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country.

This is a bit of a circular argument, isn't it?

It's not mandatory in Denmark, so by that very logic these people, following the law, are "good bikers."

>> 1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country. > >This is a bit of a circular argument, isn't it?

Sorry, I should have been more explicit. I stated that fact to give more context and because I wanted to link the mandatory helmet to the fact that bikers not wearing one in my country are more likely to be bad bikers than those wearing it. Moreover, I wanted to also state (I should have make 2 different bullet points) that we (in my country) must wear helmets because it's the law (not only because I, in my personnal opinion, think it's better - I often answer to people who asks me why I wear a stupid helmet that "it's just the law").

Wearing a helmet is a pretty strong hint but it's not a proof.

"There is absolutely no reason not to wear protective gear when riding a bike"

There are plenty of reasons. Not looking like a complete twerp is just one of them.

I am always annoyed with articles promoting safe cycling when illustrating pictures show cyclists on fancy bikes wearing fancy clothes.

You don't need fancy clothes and a fancy bike to commute to work, in fact those are often a liability.

Pretty much the only people in Copenhagen that wear helmets are racers. Yet the fatality rate in Copenhagen for cyclists is an order of magnitude less than it is in North America, where a good percentage of cyclists wear helmets.

Sorry, in Denmark there are plenty of good bikers that are not wearing yellow jackets and helmets. Why should they? The cycle superhighways are about safe-for-biking infrastructure, so you can dress as you like when biking. In central Copenhagen quite a lot of people bike in suits which is awesome.

Having survived a cycling accident that probably would have killed me if I hadn't been wearing a helmet that occurred on a perfectly "safe" traffic free track I would urge everyone to always wear a cycling helmet.

You use the word "track" which implies you were cycling at a high speed, so you are quite likely correct.

Studies show quite a clear benefit for wearing helmets if you are travelling above 20km/hr.

The benefits of a helmet are much less significant if you are biking less than 20km/hr.

By track I meant a rural unsurfaced road - the accident was completely my own fault, but I fell off and my head hit a post at the side of the road. My helmet broke into fragments and although I was unconscious for a while (I had no idea how long) it was my helmet rather than my skull that broke into pieces.

There are more requirements for "safe" than "traffic free". In fact, there are arguments that 'safe' and 'traffic free' are semi-orthoganal, that is you can have safe conditions with traffic, and unsafe conditions without it. For instance, an unsurfaced road provides many ways in which a bicycle can easily be toppled - loose gravel/dirt, weird bumps caused by rocks, washouts, etc, hence probably not 'safe', at least compared to a smoothly paved surface which is kept obstacle free.

You probably realize this but I just want to note that helmets and skulls have very different failure modes (by design in helmet's case) and just because your helmet split into pieces doesn't necessarily mean your skull would have as well.

Indeed, I can't find the link to the video where they show many different brands of cycle helmet splitting into pieces when heading a football (soccer) dropped from a certain height (which causes no injury for someone heading it without wearing a helmet).

(Pro-choice and anti-compulsion on the helmet issue. I choose not to wear one. I cycle 5,000 miles a year - 10,000 miles in a good year - cycle commuting in London, UK and leisure riding or touring.)

Probably, but as I was knocked out by my head hitting the post as I skidded along the ground still attached to my bike I hate to think what would have happened if I wasn't wearing a helmet. It's not exactly an experiment I want to re-run.

Bear in mind that a requirement like that may actually kill more people through dissuading people from the exercise a bike provides.

I wear one too since I had a close call, but I wonder whether that is actually an improvement. That time I only grazed my head because of martial arts falling training that told me to turn in midair and roll - but I wonder how that move would have ended with a few centimetres more material on my head.

If I walk in suit, or rather, in business-casual clothing, I get sweaty in much of the US. When cycling I'm aiming for minimally-covering clothing, and a shower is still helpful.

Much of continental Europe is cooler than the US, northern Europe even more so.

"Good bikers wearing yellow jackets and helmets"

The yellow jacket is really only useful in low-light conditions. Bright flashing lights are a much better form of identification than this, imho, and it's one piece of safety equipment nobody in DC ever seemed to own, though their fashionable bike safety apparel was quite solid.

I find that "road conduct" is not something most bikers have until they've been hit by a couple cars. At that point they become aware of the fact that cars either don't see them or ignore them, and they become much safer cyclists.

Maybe they're wearing an invisible bicycle helmet.

Think such a thing doesn't exist? Well think again: http://www.hovding.com/en/how/

Wa. That is... incredible!

edit: http://www.cycle-helmets.com/imgs/yehudamoon1.jpg :)

I am a happier cyclist having moved to a country without pointless restrictions in the name of collective safety. If people want to brain themselves that should be their own choice. Encouraging people to take responsibility for their own actions is more important than some dictated decree from above.

What is the advantage of no gear? Well, I can get on my bike and get to and from the store in 5 minutes (I live in a safe country, I don't even lock my bike up most of the time). Five minutes. The roads around my home are so complex and steep that it is nigh on impossible for a car to travel faster than a cyclist. Having an arbitrary requirement would only act to discourage people from cycling.

For the record, I routinely cycle around 80km a week, mainly commuting. I am only on a road for 30 seconds in the entire trip (basically, the last part to my house). With practically no enforcement (I've never seen police on bike paths or talking to cyclists) cycling is safer and easier than what I have experienced elsewhere. When the main risk is to your own wellbeing, most people are sensible enough to not kill themselves without the nanny state holding their hand.

To a dutch person (and probably to a danish person too) this is as strange as saying that people walking on sidewalks and crossing the street should wear yellow jackets and helmets. Cycling, like walking, is not a dangerous activity.

According to the articles I've been reading for the last hour it's actually more dangerous when you are wearing yellow jackets and helmets :]

Oh the horror, reckless cyclists riding unprotected! Would be funny to see your reaction when you find out that people in Denmark often smoke on a bike.

Well, surely not as funny as when the dutch girl I dated for two years told me she reads book while riding. :)

Good job Denmark. No negatives that I can see.

OT: The Des Moines Register's Annual Great Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) starts this Saturday. Anyone who's ever participated in this event can appreciate the morning commute with 10,000+ of your closest friends to get pancakes and breakfast burritos in the first town.

http://www.ragbrai.com

I did a couple (12 and 16, I think). What a blast. I just love riding early in the morning, when it's cool and misty when you just knew that the heat would hit in full force in the afternoon.

Just curious, can you ride e-bikes on the bike highways in Denmark?

Yes. E-bikes are legal and regulated.

As much as I love to support biking it's important to keep in mind how geography dependent it can be. Denmark and The Netherlands are extremely flat, which makes them unusually suitable locations for biking. If you add in any significant amount of elevation change then you immediately raise the bar in terms of the fitness requirements necessary to get to typical destinations.

That's a pretty lame excuse, IMO.

I don't think most cities have so much elevation gain that biking to work isn't practical for most people. There are definitely exceptions, but I'm pretty sure a person of average fitness could bike to work without too much trouble in the vast majority of cases.

The majority of bikes sold have multiple gears, so hills should be even less of an issue.

Electric assist bikes are making this far less of an issue. My relatively aged parents had no trouble riding 70km with 1800m of climbing. The happiness, health, and environmental benefits remain.

As a dane who has traveled a lot in the us i must say that i wouldn't dare to bike in most american cities.

As a Dane and living in Copenhagen, this is what I miss everytime I'm in another city (except Amsterdam perhaps). I love how there are bike lanes all over the place. We also have traffic lights for bikes that let's you get ahead of the cars.

Funny how stories about bicycle commuting seem to peak in summer...

Ignoring the fact that it's winter in some parts of the world, I think there's a simple explanation. Summer is probably when people are doing the most bicycling, and people have a tendency to write about what's on their mind.

I think the OP meant to make a quip about the relative unpleasantness of a bicycle commute in the winter.

In Denmark, it's not so bad actually. While winters tend to be miserable in their dark grayness, they're rarely very cold. The risk of rain is higher, but any day throughout the year could be wet. In other words, with a bit of gearing up, especially with a shower at your destination, year-round bike commuting in Denmark is completely feasible.

Not that cycling in freezing rain doesn't objectively suck.

I'd rather have "very cold" than "above freezing, but wet". If it's well below freezing it's easy to stay dry due to water's tendency to stay solid. And if you're dry, it's much easier to regulate your internal temperature.

Of course, salted roads can give you the worst of both worlds: wet & very cold.

If one finds it pleasant to ride in the summer, but not in the winter, they can always just ride in the summer.

Come to Vancouver - we have the same rain but with hills and N American drivers.

I'm an intern in the Seattle area for the summer and was faced with a choice upon arriving - buy a bike and get $350 of it covered or pay ~$1000 to get a rental car for all three months. Due to the obvious financial benefit of the former I wanted a bike, but after it raining for a week straight upon my arrival I chose to get a car. This, along with the tremendous social benefits of being able to come and go as you please, convinced me that owning and riding a bike is a healthy alternate transportation method for the nice days, but not really a feasible replacement.

I have spent the last two years at university cycling to lecture and am now cycling to work. It saves a large amount of money (~£1800 insurance+£1500 running costs). If it rains you just wear waterproof clothing. You can easily get good quality waterproofs (e.g. Gore-Tex) for £200 which will last for years.

You have to be willing to live fairly near to work of course. For me it would probably take about the same amount of time to drive to work. It takes me about 13 minutes to cycle and rush hour traffic will slow a car down.

If I want to go longer distances I can catch a train (and take the bike for the other end) or take a bus. Occasionally hiring a car is also possible for rare occasions.

So for me using a bike is completely feasible for living in a city.

I'm from Vancouver Island(right near seattle) and bike through the winter. It really isn't that bad when it's raining, wear a jacket. The only days I don't bike are snow days(because they don't do snow removal very well here) and then I take the bus.

Well, the OP is about Copenhagen, Denmark. It is not exactly warn and sunny here.

$1.6M of taxpayers money for a 40km bike route? You could build almost 35metres of freeway for that!

Sad how close to true this is. I used to work in transportation, and at least the USA* the figure is about $10-40M per mile, with rural highway being cheaper and urban highway being more expensive. So $1.6M really could buy you as little as 64 meters of freeway. (Or as much as 1/4 km!)

* Which, I should mention, has a bit of a tradition of cheaping out on the construction. Why worry about the higher maintenance costs when that's going to be your successor's problem? Better to kick that can down the road and brag about how much taxpayer money you're "saving". Ahh, the beauty of the spoils system.

Have you considered adopting the British system?

You bid out the construction to the cheapest contractor with strict penalties for late completion. But the same company then gets the contract for repair and maintenance for the next 20years!

Politicians were shocked when their brand new freeway closed for resurfacing within a month of opening.

Cue obligatory quote:

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!"

Wow, that's super interesting. Do you know of any data on whether this has been an effective strategy for keeping costs down?

Jesse, I think you missed the point. It's like the old Consulting axiom: If you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made prolonging the problem.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. Somehow the last line when in one ear and out the other. Thanks for checking me on that.

It's not really a fair comparison. For long stretches of the route, it's just an orange line painted on an existing path. On some stretches it doesn't even have a line on there.

A lot of the expensiveness of freeways also has to do with completely grade-separating it from other traffic. This route has several grade crossings at busy intersections.

It was more to highlight the different attitudes in most countries.

Pay anything toward public/alternative transport and it's taxpayers money being lavished on subsidies. But spend a $Bn on a highway that just creates bigger traffic jams and it's vital infrastructure improvements.

Here they just voted themselves a big property tax hike to pay for a new $Bn freeway bridge after it became clear that the tolls wouldn't even cover the interest. But the express bus route that was going to use the bridge has been cut to save money.

It's also the argeument behind "cyclists don't pay toward the roads" when the majority of massively expensive road building is for stuff that cyclists can't use (freeways/tunnels) and they do pay for these in tax.

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