by Florian Kaefer
11. August 2010 00:35
Spending my - working - summer in the fantastically chilled-out German city of Constance (Konstanz), I am deeply impressed by all the bikes I see on the streets. Anything, from a young father transporting his toddler in a little bike trailer, to a group of silver agers making a trip to close-by Switzerland: Constancers love their bikes. Infrastructure is great, too, exclusive bike streets (and even bridges over the Rhine!) making it a fast and safe undertaking. Not much is missing for Constance to successfully compete against Freiburg, Germany's green capital and bike heaven.
Clearly, cycling has gone mainstream, providing a useful alternative to inner city car use and overcrowded public transport. More and more cities are waking up to the bicycle boom. Barcelona introduced its Bici system some 3 years ago. How I loved to take the bike to the beach, often passing lines of cars in the city's congested centre. Others, such as Paris, followed Barcelona by introducing their own bike schemes. Now London. Celebrating the new London cycling scheme in a heavily commented article the other day, The Economist writes: Getting people onto bikes for short journeys has to be a good idea in a city where the alternatives are breathtakingly expensive taxis, sweaty and overcrowded underground trains and buses that often crawl along congested streets. And the scheme has laudable ambitions. As Boris Johnson, London’s affable mayor, puts it: “In 1904, 20% of journeys were made by bicycle in London…"
Read the whole article at the SustainabilityForum
By Florian, Journalist and Blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change
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Picture credit: Zan Wheelock
