The extra step

If you want a successful cycling culture in your city, there are a few steps that are needed.

The first is an environment that encourages everyone, regardless of age, to choose the bicycle for some journeys. That itself comes down to three basic ingredients.

Next, it is a good idea to allow for easy transitions between your cycling network and your (high quality) public transport network. That means lots of undercover parking for bikes and high frequency public transport services. If possible, trains should have lots of space set aside for bikes with wide doors allowing quick loading and unloading.

While you're doing this, you need to let people know. That means marketing all of the good stuff you have done and telling people what what good stuff is coming next.

Once you start seeing the numbers grow, the extra step of course is to keep them growing. That means making the current batch of cyclists feel good about what they are doing. The Danes do that particularly well.

I do not understand a word of this short little video (other than 'goddag') but its message comes through loud and clear:


I bike CPH - god cykelkarma from I bike CPH on Vimeo.