Nordic Revolutions – Cycling in Copenhagen

By Chris Smith on December 9, 2012 Comments Closed / 2823 views

Is Small Still Beautiful – Digital Notes

The event ‘Nordic Revolutions – Cycling in Copenhagen’ was held on Dec 4th 2012 in Committee Room 2 at the Scottish Parliament and hosted by Alison Johnstone MSP. It was organised by the Cycling Cross Party Group with Nordic Horizons

30 years ago cycling rates in Copenhagen were almost as low as they are across Scotland today. Then – something happened.

Our guest speaker for this event was Søren Arildskov Rasmussen, a member of the Danish ‘bicycle embassy’ – a small group of organizations and companies who promote bike solutions and strategy internationally. He works for public architects Gottlieb Paludan who are designing the biggest new train station in Copenhagen with innovative bicycle parking as the main attraction.

Today the Danish capital is held up as a near ideal cycling system by many – 36% of all journeys were made by bike in 2007 and 57% of cyclists said they felt safe and secure in traffic. The city’s Ecometropolis campaign aims to raise those high levels further – to 50% and 80% respectively in 2015. By contrast it’s thought only 4% of cycle journeys in Edinburgh are currently made by bike – even though the city council signed up to the Treaty of Brussels in 2009 pledging to have 15% of journeys by bicycle in 2020.

So what can Edinburgh and other Scottish cities learn from Copenhagen? As ever, we recorded Soren’s presentation and also supplied his powerpoint slides in full. Please feel free to share this material and attribute accordingly and appropriately.