Copenhagen wasn’t always cycling heaven. It started with citizens making it clear in the 60s and 70s that they were not tolerating injuries and deaths by drivers, or the negative health and environmental impacts. It took decades. The city made it gradually harder and more costly to park, and more inconvenient to drive. Sound familiar? Drivers will push back, feeling like their entitlement to streets and roads are threatened. The auto industry is fighting back too.
We’re just at the beginning, but Asbury Park can do this! And it’s not just with bikes. Scooters and other forms of micro-mobility are taking over streets and displacing cars…
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Could bicycles help save the planet and improve our cities?
In Copenhagen in the 70s after streets had become clogged with cars (just as in the US), and people were being struck and killed by drivers, the city “began by slowly but steadily increasing the costs of driving — mostly by raising automobile and gasoline taxes, but also by reducing parking availability — and using the revenue to create bike-friendly infrastructure, which includes miles of separate, uninterrupted cycling lanes, as well as dedicated bike tunnels, bridges and traffic lights. These “complete streets” and “cycling superhighways” evolved over time to reduce the space available for cars and the speeds at which they could travel. As driving became more frustrating and cycling became more efficient, the number of daily trips made by bike increased significantly.”
