of Portlanders on a tour of Copenhagen
last week.
(Photo: Jay Graves.
The recent, Metro-sponsored field trip to Copenhagen and Amsterdam concluded last week. The trip was intended as an inspirational master class on how those two cities have created a safe, efficient, and comfortable bike network that’s used by well over 30% of their residents (of all ages) on a daily basis.
During their stint in Copenhagen, the Portland delegation (which included an array of folks from PDOT’s head traffic engineer Rob Burchfield to local architect Rick Potestio) got a bike tour by Mikael Colville-Andersen.
Colville-Andersen is the man behind Copenhangenize and Copenhagen Cycle Chic — two blogs that give readers an insider look at the policies, fashion, and trends of the world’s most bike friendly city.
In a blog post about their tour he posted yesterday, Colville-Andersen described the group as “an impressive army of dedicated and eager Portlanders”. He also wrote,
“I find it amazing and impressive that such a group made the trip to Europe in order to exchange ideas and to find inspiration. Portlanders should be proud that they have such dedicated citizens working for a better bicycle future.”
One of those “dedicated citizens” is Bike Gallery owner Jay Graves. Jay posted several stories from the road on the shop’s blog. Graves cited a few fun stats he learned from Colville-Andersen:
- Copenhageners ride 1.2 million kilometers everyday.
- There are 130,000 daily bike commuters in Copenhagen.
- Only 35% of the population owns a car (Danish residents have to pay a 100% tax on auto purchases).
- The town of Friedrichsburg has a Bicycle Counter on one of their popular trails with daily and yearly totals.
Read Portlanders on Tour on Copenhagenize.