2 posts tagged “bicycles”
It's been interesting to read stories in the American press lately about the spike in public transit ridership—attributed to higher gas prices. Here in Denmark we're paying just over $8 a gallon, double what folks are paying stateside, and though prices have gone up here, they haven't risen as much as in the US. Europeans have been paying high prices for many years.
From the moment we stepped out of the airport in Copenhagen and saw hundreds of bicycles parked between the terminal and the automobile parking ramp, we knew we were in another world. It is all but impossible to imagine anyone getting to work at an international airport in the United States. I stepped out of Newark airport hoping to take a walk in the sunshine only to find the sidewalk came to an abrupt end at the point where cars and taxis turned to connect to the highway. Like most international airports, Karstrup is well outside the city limits. Nevertheless, enough Danes live close enough to it that commuting to work on a bicycle is possible. (The average Dane rides 4 km a day, which doesn't seem like so much until you realize that that number takes into consideration all Danes, 2 year olds and 90 year olds.) And there's an infrastructure in place to accommodate the bicyclists.
The Copenhagen government recently announced a big, well-funded project to increase bicycle ridership in the city. Currently, 36% of commuters travel by bicycle, 27% by car. The city is hoping to increase bicycle commuting to 50% (that's about where it is in Amsterdam, the bicycle capital of the world). So they're going to build bicycle ramps over particularly busy streets (the first went up just a couple months ago), create more bike lanes, build more bicycle parking areas, and put in pumping stations. Have a flat tire? Not to worry, air will be close by.
Of course, Denmark has a few things going for the bicyclists. The mild climate means that if you're particularly stalwart, you can keep your bicycle going year-round, but even if you're not, there are only a few months when ridership really drops. Denmark is basically flat, so traveling by bicycle in your Gucci suit is not unheard of. We've seen women in furs and stiletto heels spinning along. Really, everyone bicycles: our mail comes on a bicycle, senior citizens bike to the grocery store, teenagers bicycle along drinking soda pop, dog owners run their dogs alongside the bicycle, and dads with toddlers in car seats run errands.
Though you see people on high-tech road bikes wearing sleek latex gear, most people are out on sturdy, upright bicycles meant for getting around comfortably, and bicycle shops are found in any shopping district. (Aside: in our neighborhood shopping area are a grocery store, two banks, a shawarma/pizza joint, and a bicycle shop. No Blockbuster or McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts.) Bicyclists have the right of way and bike lanes (where no parking is allowed) run alongside most streets and many country roads. There are even street lights just for bicyclists. Trains have special cars with room for bicycles, and at the stations are elevators or ramps for bicyclists to get up or down from the tracks and huge bicycle parking areas (in Roskilde it's a two story parking ramp!). It is not unusual to find large bicycle parking areas near public buildings and no car parking whatsoever.
This bicycle culture has many benefits, of course: people get into the outdoors, into the fresh air and the weather; it is unusual to see obese Danes; there are not huge ugly environmentally stupid parking lots everywhere you go; traffic is slow and light; and people aren't spending $8 a gallon every time they drive to work or go out for a gallon of milk.
So, as I read the stories about spikes in public transit ridership in the US, I think of what it might mean if Americans were paying $8 a gallon for gas, like the rest of the world does. Maybe we'd actually enter the 21st Century.
A couple evenings ago, Arne, Anika, and I sat in our living room with my sweet sister Beatrice. She was visiting from Georgetown, Texas. One highlight of our time with her was a short trip to Amsterdam, home of the Dutch Masters (no, not a baseball team) and of marijuana seed banks (international and organic varieties). Here's our interview with Beatrice. The adults were enjoying a glass of jenever, a Dutch liquor something between gin and aquavit, served ice cold. Otto was practicing a card trick in the background.
Arne: What surprised you about Denmark?
Beatrice: It's not as populated as I thought it would be. There are expanses of land that are greater than I had expected. It surprised me that everyone looks like a member of the Kildegaard family!
Arne: I have a big family! [All descended from Gorm the Old]
Arne: What about the Danish language?
Beatrice: I didn't realize it was so auditorially challenging! It's a stunningly difficult language. [The words for “kiss,” “lad,” and “bunion” are but one skinny vowel sound apart. What we first thought was a religious ritual turns out to be nothing more than a failure to communicate.]
Athena: Can you remember your first impressions?
Beatrice: Bicycles everywhere! There was the hassle with my suitcases, through no fault of my own, and I got my luggage the next day but it was sort of a reserved professional attitude about lost luggage. Attempts at humor fell like a brick (bad cliche). They met deaf ears. Though the airport is a major metropolitan airport it was really small. O'Hare is 15 times bigger!
Arne: [Coming to the defense of the Danes] Yes, but that was just the international airport.
Athena: Has anything differed from your expectations based on this blog and our letters?
Beatrice: I've had a different experience since we've had the car and we've been using it. Stupid question! move on.
Athena: Talk about the food.
Beatrice: I helped make breakfast today!
Anika: Describe the attributes of your most beautiful niece!
Beatrice: The bread selection is outrageous and I could eat the bread, a different variety, every day. So it's sad to report that my sister and her family did NOT feed me different bread every day.
Arne: We're still serving the hard rye bread from your first day.
Beatrice: The chocolate selection is wonderful and in Amsterdam it is amazing, but someone else ate all the orange milk chocolate [Arne: burp].
Athena: Do you want to say anything else about food?
Arne: About the pickled herring, for example?
Beatrice: I knew coming here that I would go to the grocery store [laughter] because that's what my sister writes about and I'm happy to report that we have almost gone every day and I'm looking forward to having the fløde skum. [whipped cream. Notice how she ignored the question concerning herring?]
Arne: What about your brother-in-law's sweet car?
Beatrice: It is heartening to know that the Kildegaard quality automobile selection continues unabated!
[Photo: That's Beatrice on the right, and our high-class Peugeot behind them.]
Anika: What about the weather?
Beatrice: It seems I brought clear weather with me! It hasn't rained once. I brought an umbrella and didn't need it; I didn't bring a winter jacket and needed it. [exaggeration]
Athena: Name one reason people should come visit us.
Anika: ...besides the fact that we're so amazing...
[Arne begins passing around a jar of German pickles that we bought at a gas station quick stop in an effort to relieve ourselves of coin Euros]
Beatrice: To see the land of Freya, Odin, and Christian IV. I think it's important that people come to the land of the Order of the Elephant! That and my sister and her family are hospitable hosts.
Anika: How about your niece?
Beatrice: She's stunningly beautiful.
Anika: Would you care to say more?
Beatrice: She doesn't snore.
Anika: ...unlike other people I know. [She looks knowingly toward her father.]
Athena: Any highlights from our time in Copenhagen?
Beatrice: It was busier than I remember [Beatrice was in Denmark in 1993]. I absolutely loved/adored the Rosenborgslot gardens. [Rosenborgslot was Christian IV's weekend get-away castle.]
They had bird cages and topiary and cement spheres and a moat. There are vast quantities of graffiti, which was disheartening. I don't remember graffiti in '93. In NYC they've had it for 20 years, and people have moved on, but here it is still very fresh. After getting our tickets on the train, the children laughed uproariously when their mother said to the lady “thanks for the food.” [There's no relief, even for the elders.]
Athena: Any highlights from our trip to Amsterdam?
Anika: I went to the zoo and it was filled with naked women behind glass.
Beatrice: The dancing houses! Rembrandt's “Night Watch” and the Vermeers.
Anika: I like everything Rembrandt painted.
Beatrice: 750,000 bicycles are stolen a year in Amsterdam!
Arne: The tour guide on the canal trip who could speak any language! But he couldn't do Indonesian, so he had to play a tape for them. [We took a canal tour and the tour guide asked what languages people on the tour were speaking. So he gave his tour spiel in English and Russian to accomodate passengers. He could have given it in Dutch, French, or German. The Israelis on the tour understood the English.]
Beatrice: It was interesting that the tour guide, speaking so many languages, apologized to the Indonesians for the Dutch having been bad people in the past, but that they were no longer bad people.
Arne: I liked the non-judgmental way he made reference to the coffee shops [where adults can legally enjoy marijuana and hashish] and the soft drugs and how a French girl had died a couple years ago. [She thought, while under the influence, that she could fly.] He was so matter of fact about these things.
Athena: Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Beatrice: Well, about George Bush... No, seriously, this is a fascinating country and everyone who has an opportunity should come to visit. And who knows, when you come, the Kildegaards might be on their way to Berlin...or Helsinki...
