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The slalom family in residential alleys, borrows the sort of Dossering, a cycle path bordering the lake rosary which crosses the northeast of the city of a shimmering diagonal, then it reaches Dronning Louises Bro (Pont de la Reine-Louise).A symbolic place, the cycle path "the most frequented in the world, where up to 42,000 bikes per day", dixit the town hall.4:30 p.m. The rush hour in Denmark (school and working day end between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.).Hamilton plunges into a human flow on wheels.And he pedals, he pedals, he pedal!While drowning his parents under a flood of words, like any child telling his day, even dropping the handlebars when he has to call his hands to the rescue to convince.
In Copenhagen, everyone seems to be mounted on wheels
His relaxation is not miraculous.In this city, 602,000 inhabitants and 675,000 bikes, everything is designed for cyclists to circulate in safety and with pleasure.Even at 5 years old.Because, no offense to Amsterdam, Copenhagen has been posing for a few years in the new world capital of the small queen.
Copenhagenize, an organization that advises metropolises around the world wishing to encourage the practice of the bicycle and which compares, every two years, the "bicycle data" provided by 130 cities, is not stingy by figures proving the superiority of the city Danish. Example: in 2019, at CPH, as its inhabitants call it, 62 % of intramural daily journeys were bicycle. Crushed, Amsterdam, with its little 36 %! Forgotten, Paris, where 2 % of journeys (races and leisure activities included) are bicycle. Like 97 % of Copenhaguois, Frej Elbæk Schjeldal, Hamilton's father, considers himself satisfied with cycling conditions. "We don't even ask ourselves the question of why we take our bicycle every day," he said. It’s just more practical, easier, faster than the car or the metro. We are not more sensitive than elsewhere to safeguard the planet. " Moreover, three quarters of the inhabitants of the capital use their bike during the endless, dark and rainy winters. And it is not only because, when you are Danish, you were born Waterproof and indifferent to the gusts of the Baltic wind! No, this "miracle" is due to outstanding infrastructure, an active communication from the authorities in favor of the bicycle and a little nothing that changes everything: a certain art of living to the rhythm of the pedal ...
To be convinced, we can post early in the morning on the Kongens Nytorv ("New Place du Roi)". The opportunity to appreciate the charm of this green esplanade which serves several central trading and business districts, as well as, in the north, Frederiksstaden, the district where the royal family resides and, in the east, Nyhavn, the small port History with bigarry facades. Like the city, this place offers an architectural telescoping that you are surprised to find harmonious. The old pink baroque facade of the Thott Palais (the headquarters of the French Embassy), that, more austere, of the Kongelige Teater (where operas and ballets occur), or that, all in fitted windows, from the northern store ( In French, please!), Local equivalent of Galeries Lafayette. But the Kongens Nytorv is also the best place from which the cyclists observe. Here is one, the hat pressed to the eyebrows, equipped with the classic arsenal of the mowed and relaxed student (eliminated backpack and sneakers close to burnout), Jean returned to the socks, probably to protect him from " Attacks "of his old biclou without chain guard ... But now he is overtaken by an elegant, straight like an" I "in his turtleneck, heeled boots, bag and matching gloves in natural leather on his impeccable mount. There is also, in the rolling flux, this mother maneuvering with ease with a heavy cargo bike on which she accomplished the prodigy to keep three little blond heads, their bags of schoolchildren, their tricycles and racing bags.
An almost banal scene here: a quarter of Copenhaguois households with two or more children have this kind of scooter equipped with a big cash.Retirees, businessmen, craftsmen whose tools resonate in their bags ... The Danish people seem to be mounted on wheels."For us, the Copenhaguois, the bicycle is an accessory, a sign of social status, a bit like a handbag in New York or in Paris," notes Marie Caroline, the mother of Hamilton, who crosses the cityFrom north to south every day.Nostalgic people will find a bicycle from the 1980s, if possible the same as that on which the heroine of the Flashdance film drove [in Pittsburgh], the sores will order their “eco -responsible” model in a chic workshop in the Vesterbro district,Others will, on the contrary, make it a point of honor to choose a simple machine without speed.Show me your bike, I would tell you who you are ... "
In the streets, silence strikes tourists
Subtleties that escape the visitor.On the other hand, what strikes is the calm that reigns in the streets.Not only because there are six times less cars than bikes.This is mainly because there is a lack of an inseparable element of the "soundtrack" of cities with high cycling traffic: bells.Where is the concert of bells thanks to which, in Asian cities, cyclists managed to sneak into the crowd, before scooters and cars arrived in the streets in the 1990s-2000?Where are these strident warnings, almost furious, by which the bikes in Amsterdam demand that Sunday pedestrians and cyclists leave them free in a city where they are kings?Nothing here.In Copenhagen, there is a silent code allowing each bike to anticipate the behavior changes of the other.
A sign language that José Phine Wulffeld teaches visitors who follow her. Student at the University of Copenhagen, where she is preparing a thesis on climate change, she supervises Green Bike Tours, guided tours during which she explains how the city has half reduced her greenhouse gas emissions for the past ten years , while its population increased by 15 %. “If you want to deport yourself to the left, to double or turn, stretch your arm on the left; If you want to stop, raise the forearm up, "she lists while explaining that you never cut a crossroads diagonally or that slow bikes must stay on the right so as not to Enjoy the fastest. The consciousness of the other is what characterizes the cyclist from here. Before embarking on a track, he looks if it is free. Does he want to double or stop? He takes a look over his shoulder. So attentive to what is happening around him that one might think so endowed with mirrors, while the cyclist of the big French cities seems rather equipped with souillers.
"This behavior is mainly due to street infrastructure explains James Thoem, urban planner, director of Copenhagenize Denmark, landed from Canada to Copenhagen six years ago. They have the three qualities required for an environment favorable to cycling: they are safe, entirely interconnected and pleasant. ” An outstanding network of the whole city. "I have never used a plan or app to look for the most suitable route, they are all suitable!" Confirms Jimmi Bargisen, a bicycle courier for two decades. To make the city's urban planning policy understand, James Thoem takes its visitors to Vesterbro, a former malfamilian district whose sexshops have reflected under a surge of organic chocolateries and micro-breweries. "This area is considered to be little dangerous for cyclists because the speed of cars is limited to twenty kilometers hour, the average pace of a bicycle," he explains going down from his mount.
How is it that motorists respect the limitation indicated on the panel?
"The municipality practices what we call" urban acupuncture ", continues James Thoem.It makes small changes that induce appropriate behavior. ”Example ?In the past, these two streets (Godsbanegade and the Dybbølsgade) formed an obtuse angle, the cars could turn almost without braking because they had visibility.Today, the angle has become acute thanks to the addition of a triangular chicane that points to the roadway, and the drivers are forced to slow down.Further on, towards the south, James designates a strip two meters wide of flat pavers developed in the road which, as in all the streets of the city center, is made of large bulging pavers.Discreet attention to cyclists who take these shared routes.The idea?Avoid slippages and slides.While preserving the wrists and backs, which cask the shock of tremors.
The town hall also wanted more spectacular arrangements. Fifteen minutes from Vesterbro, James stops at the start of the cykelslangen ("the cycle snake"). A bridge reserved for bikes, dating from 2014. It starts six or seven meters high, in front of a shopping center (the Fisketorvet), then flows above the water in long ripples to come and die , 220 meters further, on an island in the middle of the port. The cyclists who borrow it dominate Havneholmen, airy port district where the new towers coexist with the old silos, warehouses or factories rehabilitated in residential and offices. A giant lego of brick, glass and concrete. They will also have flew over one of the five swimming pools in the Port, crowded in summer, frequented in winter by suicide bomber swimmers. According to one of the golden rules of Danish design and architecture, to be well received, a project must not only be useful, it must also offer sensations, pleasure.
Successful bet: the "snake" (designed by Dissing+Weitling, a cabinet founded by two former collaborators of the star of Danish architects, Arne Jacobsen) is borrowed by 18,000 cyclists per day.Right opposite, it is extended by the Bryggebroen.Thanks to this simple bridge, cyclists can finish crossing the port to win Amagerbro, the southern part of Copenhagen, while before, they had to make a detour of several kilometers.This is the first of the sixteen bridges for bikes that the municipality had built between 2006 and 2019. "We thought it would spend 4,000 bicycles per day," says Joséphine, whose green bike towers also pass by.Today, we are 12,000. "Create shortcuts, connect the neighborhoods, the role of these bridges was essential.
The cycle network does not stop there: the municipality used the parks to connect the tracks between them, like the Faelledparken, the most extensive in the city, which little Hamilton crosses every morning. And we have taken care that interconnections with the metro and suburban trains (which accept bikes) are as fluid as possible: dedicated parking lots, signage in stations, ease of access to the trains. Because promoting cycling traffic in the County of Copenhagen, which concentrates two million inhabitants, a third of the Danes, is a big issue. The rail network is being completed by cycle highways: fast, wide, obstacles. There were seventeen kilometers in 2012, ten times more in 2019. Objective for 2045: 750 kilometers. "Thanks to their coordinated bicycle lights, you can drive at constant speed, testifies Frej Elbæk Schjeldal, Hamilton's father, who borrows them on weekends to make three or four hours out of the city with other forties and business executives. Besides, in the morning during the week, we immediately spot those who land in town by these tracks where they drove twenty or thirty kilometers. They find it difficult to slow down! "
Cargo bike, the alternative to the car
To streamline traffic during rush hour, bicycle lights from certain avenues, such as nørregade, are also synchronized so that a bicycle rolling at 20 km/h has them all green.Another effect: "encourage motorists, who remain blocked in red, to put themselves on the bicycle", notes James Thoem.The latter recognizes, however, that it is not easy to do without a car.Problem: transporting bulky purchases.Certainly, stores like Ikea lend bikes with a plateau.But the main alternative to the car, the famous cargo bike with its huge wooden box at the front framed by two large wheels, is heavy, not very handy and unsuitable for certain objects."When the children grow up, we end up using them only to enter a little watered evenings ... because they are more stable," said Marie Caroline.
Some already imagine the cargo bike of the future. Two years ago, Jimmi Bargisen, our courier, set up Omnium Cargo Bike, a company that designs and assembles ultra-light versions of the machine (eighteen kilos against fifty for a conventional cargo), with a retractable bag In canvas and, for the most upscale, a titanium frame. The price is high (from 2,700 to 4,700 euros) but, according to Jimmi, the request is there: "We sold 2,000 in 2020, all of pre-order," he said. There are never left in store. " At the Lab innovation bicycle, we have another approach. This association holds thirty models of different cargos. Against a contribution of 130 euros per year, its members can borrow up to eight per month, some of which are still in the prototype stage. The idea is to find the one that best suits your needs and thus contribute to innovation. The Lab also campaigns so that, in rural areas, cyclists are also pampered. Because there, the path remains to be done. "In small country stations, the quays are not suitable, you have to wear your bike to get off the train," regrets Riccardo Zanetti, one of the members. And on the regional rail network, you cannot book your bicycle ticket online. ”
Not everything is rosy in the green paradise of cyclists
Pampered, CPH cyclists do not hesitate to criticize what dismisses them.There are, for example, many of the systematic appeal to stars architects to build cycle bridges.And to show the finger at Inderhavnsbroen, close to the tourist district of Nyhavn.Since its inauguration in 2016, it has been under construction: too dangerous."From the first week, a cyclist broke the collarbone," said Joséphine Wulffeld.
In the streets of Copenhagen, it happens to meet dump trucks filled with bikes. The municipality recovers 15,000 each year on the public highway. "Some are out of course to circulate because, here, we use his mount until Death follows," notes Marie Caroline. Others were stolen, borrowed, lost ... "Stolen, we understand: this is a scourge of cycle cities (17,000 complaints were filed with the Copenhaguoise police in 2019). But, borrowed? Equaled? "There are two periods when we, Danish, drink a lot: summer and Christmas," explains Marie Caroline Elbæk Schjeldal. Some exaggerate to the point of no longer knowing where they parked their bicycle, to abandon it because they are no longer able to pedal or take another than theirs, which is easy because in general we Do not lock our anti -thefts. " It is also on the occasion of these phases of collective drunkenness, according to her, that many bicycles "disappear" in the water, to reappear a few months later, and not at the best of their form, during the Port dredging operations. "Do not believe that, because we are Danish, our civic sense is impeccable," she continues. In fact, we are a bit of the French of Scandinavia, and sometimes blood on our bikes. ” Nevertheless. After the summer holidays, little Hamilton will return to primary school. And her mother will gradually let her go by bike without her. First under the leadership of his big daughter, Svea, who, at 12, has long made Copenhagen her kingdom. Then, one day, Hamilton will drive alone on the immense bridge of the Queen-Louise to go and buy her duck confit.
To go further: our podcast "Return of land"
Occasional cyclist, our journalist Anne Cantin valiantly pedaled for a week for this report.Starting between two confinements, she found herself in Copenhagen in the fall, in the rain.But she says it at the microphone of the 20th episode of the Podcast Geo "Return of the field": in the devil the showers and the night at 4 p.m., the Danish capital is indeed the paradise of the biclou.To listen to below and on all platforms.
➤ Special Copenhagen file published in our June issue (n ° 508, new formula!)
📸 In pictures: Copenhagen, Life by bike.
➤ To find the new Geo issue available individually, it's here!Are you already faithful to Geo content?Take advantage of a discount of GEO magazine with the Geodix code.
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⋙ Morgenfrisk, ØLfrygt, Hyggelig… 8 Danish words untranslatable⋙ Denmark inaugurates its first museum of happiness in Copenhagen⋙ what are the most beautiful cities in Denmark? ⋙ What to do in Copenhagen when we love the story?
