Bicycle Commuter Superhighways in Copenhagen

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Awesome idea!

It would be nice to hit all green lights at 42km (Green Wave).

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/08/bicycle-commuter-superhighways-in.html

Bicycle Commuter Superhighways in Copenhagen

The City of Copenhagen is currently planning to expand the existing, extensive network of bike lanes to extend farther out into the suburbs. A network of 13 high-class routes - 'bicycle superhighways' if you will - dedicated to bicycle commuters and aimed at encouraging more to cycle to work.

Currently 55% of the citizens in central Copenhagen ride a bicycle daily and the number is 37% for Greater Copenhagen. While in many other countries anybody who cycles to work is often considered a 'bicycle commuter', most of the 500,000 people who cycle to work or education in Copenhagen don't fit into the Danish version of this statistical category.

A 'commuter' is loosely categorised as someone who travels more than 10 km to work. The City of Copenhagen and the surrounding towns are aiming to increase the trips by bike on the new routes. There is an efficient network of public transport throughout the region but just as any train passenger or motorist knows, it feels much quicker and is much quicker if you don't have to stop all the time. The same principle applies to cycling to work and it is the key to the development of this new net of superhighways.

Just like anywhere, there are many people who cycle longer distances but the focus for the new plan is the 'middle ground' - the zone between 7 and 15 km from the city centre.

There are roughly 100,000 people who currently commute into or out of Copenhagen County [as opposed to within], travelling between 4-15 km. 15,000 of them ride their bicycle.

The remaining 85,000 who take the bus, train or car are the target group for this project.

The routes will be developed on the existing bike lanes but they will have a number of improved features, according to the City's vision:
- Smooth, even surfaces free of leaves, ice and snow.
- As direct as possible with no detours.
- Homogenous visual expression, for example, with signage and the trademark blue bike lanes through larger intersections.
- 'Service stations' with air and tools along the routes.
- Possibility to maintain a high speed and with sufficient width to overtake other cyclists.
- Safe and quick crossing priority for cyclists when they approach cross streets.
- Green Wave for cyclists through sections with frequent stop lights.
[The Green Wave is in place on three main routes into Copenhagen already. Cycle 20 km/h and you hit green lights all the way.]

The new commuter routes are expected to cost roughly 250 million kroner [$47 million]. A net of routes of similar length, isolated and away from the streets would cost between 1 and 1.5 billion kroner. [$200-280 million].

Green Wave Video Here (don't know how to embed Vimeo):
http://vimeo.com/1910758
Description and link here:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/10/surfing-green-wave-in-copenhagen.html

I've written about the Green Wave but I've never actually tried it. So yesterday I rode a long section of it and filmed from my bike. I didn't go all the way to the city centre, choosing instead to stop and film the morning bicycle rush hour.

You can see that for long stretches the number of cars is minimal. This was bumper to bumper traffic only a couple of weeks ago. You will also see the amazing flow of cyclists in the morning light.

When starting the ride it was about 08:15. When I stopped and filmed, the flow increased. 08:30-09:00 seems to be peak hours, although the flow never really stops.

Thank you, Mayor Bondam.

 

[Russell]

I am sooooooooo jealous. There is only one decent paved trail 4 miles south of me that I pick up to go west out of town :|


-R

 

[recumbent]

Nice, this is what we all dream of having access to one day.

Fortunately i live in a progressive town and have some lit trails also (and many un-lit) through important places in town. We are only 30,000 pop. and improving yearly.

 

[spinningmagnets]

A serious bike road in Sydney Australia:

 

[Matthijs]

I just saw on the news today that the Dutch Traffic State representative is going to invest €70 million into bicycle infrastructure! €25 million is to double the current 5 Bicycle Commuter Superhighways to 10!

2 of those are already known: Leiden-Den Haag and Arnhem-Nijmegen the other 3 yet still to be determent. Other funds will be for making 100k "parking spots" near train- and bus stations. Cleaning up old bikes in twenty counties and further development of an electric bike map and routes within counties for navigation. They also say that electric bikes are a main cause of this new investments!

 

[Cackalacka]

Man, I'm jealous. That is awesome. My commute would be about 30% longer than that Farum ruten line.

Although in my commuting case, substitute 'Green Wave' with an intersection of two eight lane highways, and substitute 'well lit paths' with 'angry, battery-throwing F-250 Dually-driving yokels' and they're somewhat comparable. I think the House of Saud prefer's my towns urban planning choices.

 

[jag]

I lived 5 years in Rochester, NY. There were already an east-west path along the NY barge canal
and north-south along Genesee river. When I bought a house, I made sure it was close to the bike paths.

However, there were additionally several disused railroads going from the city through the suburbs in a spoke
pattern. These could easily be made bike paths by paving, or at least putting some bike friendlier gravel on
top of the ballast stone.

Many cities have disused railroads, canals or roads that could be cheaply made into bike paths. These are
often along the premier transportation corridors (by the simple reason that canals and rail came before cars),
are straight and often bridges over/under roads already to avoid interference with traffic.

Europe is full of canal's, but not all canal paths are maintained or paved. (As I experiences trying to
cycle in Britain.

 

[StridaHope]

No! Don't use the whole corridor for bikes! Those rights of way are vital for future rail corridors for public transit! We need to preserve them. When you convert a corridor into a trail it's very, VERY hard to get it back (witness the purple line in washington and the NIMBYs wanting to keep it as a trail).

It's okay to put a trail ALONGSIDE the tracks sometimes, but we need to keep the rail there. Remember that public transit is important for both ourselves and the environment in general, but also to extend our range on our bicycles far beyond what are legs and batteries can handle.

 

[jag]

No! Don't use the whole corridor for bikes! Those rights of way are vital for future rail corridors for public transit! We need to preserve them. When you convert a corridor into a trail it's very, VERY hard to get it back (witness the purple line in washington and the NIMBYs wanting to keep it as a trail).

It's okay to put a trail ALONGSIDE the tracks sometimes, but we need to keep the rail there. Remember that public transit is important for both ourselves and the environment in general, but also to extend our range on our bicycles far beyond what are legs and batteries can handle.

I agree that public transit corridors are important, and disused rail lines are often the best, most direct paths. Maybe as long as they are disused they could be borrowed for bike paths by just inexpensively spreading some finer grain gravel than the ballast. If it is later used for public transit the bike path can be moved to the side. How wide is a typical railroad right of way?

I think there is an even bigger danger to leave the old railroad right of ways unused. Then it is easy for a developer with government contacts to buy the choice parts, and it is going to be a whole lot harder to put public transit in when pieces of the old railroad are blocked by new malls, offices or whatnot.

Where I grew up in Sweden there was an old railroad bed we used to ride in the countryside. At a point where it ran near a lake the owner of the big summer residence behind it managed to buy out a hundred meters stretch (so he could get a continuous lot with lake access). Of course he promptly blocked access and those missing 100m made several kilometres of the trail unusable (there wasn't any road access nearby to easily bypass the blocked section)