Skip to main content

Bike Infrastructure Building Boom in Denmark


Photo: Joan Karlsen/jv.dk

Pretty much everywhere you go in the countryside there are dedicated bicycle lanes running parallel to the roads, enabling cyclists to ride from town to town with the same accessibility as motorists.

There are, however, black spots on the map that lack high-quality separated infrastructure. The national government's financial boost for bicycles from last year [launched on my birthday, actually] has now transformed into projects that are actually being built. 1 billion kroner [$200 million] was offered up for bicycle projects and it resulted in a storm of applications from towns, cities and orgs wanting funds for a variety of things.

Above is a bicycle lane being built between two towns in Jutland. The article from the provincial newspaper jv.dk is about how it ended up being 800,000 kroner [$160,000] cheaper because the costs for archeological digs was less than planned and lower labour costs than expected. It's part of a 5 or 6 km stretch connecting two towns, Brørup and Foldingbro.

There's a link on the page of the article to a related article about another bike track being built. By all accounts there is massive investment in bicycle infrastructure all across Denmark.

I posted last October about a call for building bicycle infrastructure to aid growth in times of financial instablity and in February 2010 the Danish minister of Finance encouraged Danes to buy bicycles as a boost to the economy for the same reasons.

Bad times for global finances. Massive good times for bicycle infrastructure in Denmark.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling - Why It's Bad

One of the main focuses of this blog has always been on how Copenhagen and other cities have succeeded in increasing cycling levels by approaching the subject using mainstream marketing techniques. Tried and tested marketing that has existed since homo sapiens first started selling or trading stuff to each other. Modern bicycle advocacy, by and large, is flawed. It is firmly inspired by environmentalism which, in turn, is the greatest marketing flop in the history of humankind. Four decades of sub-cultural finger-wagging, guilt trips and preaching have given few results among the general population. When sub-cultural groups start trying to indoctrinate and convert the public, it rarely ever succeeds. For the better part of a century, people all over the planet rode bicycles because they were quick, easy, convenient and enjoyable. In hilly cities. In hot cities. In snowy cities. After the bicycle largely disappeared from the urban landscape because urban planning s...
Read more

A Walking Helmet is a Good Helmet

At long last logic prevails. A new campaign has hit the streets of Denmark, thanks to the visionaries at The Danish Road Safety Council [Sikker Trafik] and Trygfonden [an insurance company]. Intense promotion of walking helmets for pedestrians has begun. This logic has been sorely missed. These two organisations have happily promoted bike helmets but pedestrians suffer just as many head injuries, if not more. This Danish campaign poster reads: "A walking helmet is a good helmet" "Traffic safety isn't just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups." The slogan is catchy in Danish since it kind of rhymes. All in all it's a brilliant project. Let's save some lives. The new walking helmets will be available in the Danish Cyclists Union's [Dansk cyklist forbund] shop. Although, as the...
Read more

Driving Kills - Health Warnings

I think it's safe to say that we have a pressing need for marketing cycling positively if we're to encourage people to ride bicycles and begin the transformation of our cities into more liveable places. Instead of scare campaigns about cycling [a life-extending, healthy, sustainable transport form], wouldn't it be more appropriate to begin campaigns about the dangers of automobiles? Many people in car-centric countries no longer regard cars as dangerous. Maybe they realise it, but the car is such an ingrained part of the culture that the perception of danger rarely rises to the surface of peoples consciousness. Sure, there are scare campaigns for cars out there, but what if we just cut to the chase? Much like smoking. Only a couple of decades ago, cigarettes were an integral part of life, whether you smoked or not. That has changed radically. We think that we could borrow freely from the health warnings now found on cigarette packs around the world. In order to be tho...
Read more