The Massive Potential of Shifting Trips from Car to Bike

As the graphic above indicates, the potential for switching to bicycles and cargo bikes in European cities is impressive, according to a Cyclelogistics.eu baseline study. 51% of all motorised trips related to goods transport could realistically be done on bikes and cargo bikes.

This is a good thing.

Copenhagenize Design Company have been involved with the brilliant Cyclelogistics.eu project for two and a half years now. The project is aimed at promoting the use of cargo bikes in European cities.

We've recently posted about our Shop by Bike campaign here in Copenhagen and for the past two and half years there have been great initiatives in all of our partner cities.

Our partner in Graz, Austria - FGM Amor - have spearheaded a Cyclelogistics baseline study about how much of the the goods transport in a city could realistically be switched to cargo bikes and bicycles.

In the above graphic you can see what the transport equation looks like in European cities.

The composition of trips in European cities looks like this, above.

Here we outline the shift potential.

All logistics have the potential to shift to bikes, but shopping has the greatest potential for reducing car use.

In addition, Cyclelogistics did a campaign in Graz and Vienna, in collaboration with the SPAR supermarket chain.

The campaign revealed why the particpants didn't shop by bike.

After participating in the campaign, there were pleasant results. The expectations of the participants were exceeded in every category. A whole lot of mythbusting busted a whole lot of myths. All by getting people out of their perception bubble and onto the bicycle infrastructure to try it for themselves.

There were, of course, areas that the participants thought needed improvement. Not suprisingly, safe infrastructure for cycling was the main one. Parking and incentives were close behind.

Participants were asked what they thought about potential services that could be provided for them.

The results were positive. Beyond our own expectations.

You can read the whole baseline study from Cyclelogistics - as a pdf - from the Cyclelogistics.eu website.

Follow Cyclelogistics on Facebook and on Twitter.

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...

The New Question for 21st Century Cities

It's all so simple if we want it to be. For almost a century we have been asking the same question in our cities. "How many cars can we move down a street?" It's time to change the question. If you ask "How many PEOPLE can we move down a street?", the answer becomes much more modern and visionary. And simple. Oh, and cheaper. Let alone the fact that the model at the top can move 10 times more people down a street than the model at the bottom. When I travel with my Bicycle Urbanism by Design keynote , I often step on the toes of traffic engineers all around the world. Not all of them, however. I am always approached by engineers who are grateful that someone is questioning the unchanged nature of traffic engineering and the unmerited emphasis placed on it. I find it brilliant that individual traffic engineers in six different nations have all said the same thing to me: "We're problem solvers. But we're only ever asked to solve the sam...

City Plan Vest and Søringen - 1958-1974 - Copenhagen

A couple of twists of fate and this location in Copenhagen would have been a 12 lane motorway. When looking back over the last century of cities infatuated with Car Culture, it's not hard to see how stupid we were - or almost were. In the 1940s the so-called Finger Plan was developed for Copenhagen . By and large an interesting concept and the foundation for the expansion of Copenhagen. The Finger Plan has, however, some dark secrets. Among them are two connected projects. City Plan Vest (City Plan West) and Søringen (The Lake Ring). The City Plan Vest, in 1958, proposed that Copenhagen be equipped with a Lake Ring. The #19 motorway from the north would continue over Hans Knudsens Plads - in a tunnel to Vibenshus Runddel - and then emerging again to continue along Nørre Allé in a 12 lane motorway down Tagensvej and Fredensgade. It would turn right along The Lakes to Vesterbro, where a comprehensive interchange would be built to lead traffic to the south towards Germany and ...

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