Comment by rsynnott
2 days ago
... Are you claiming that there are few or no European cities with extensive separated bike lanes or something?
2 days ago
... Are you claiming that there are few or no European cities with extensive separated bike lanes or something?
There is Copenhagen. And Dutch cities. I don't know if there are any other European cities with extensive separated bike lanes. Valencia has some bike lanes but I wouldn't call them extensive. Only 143 kilometers versus 515 kilometers in Amsterdam, which has a similar population.
It likely depends how you're defining separated. Some cities go for completely separate routes, some curb separation, some bollard separation, some on-footpath separation. Some use a chaotic mix (Dublin, say, is building a 300km segregated system, but because this is being delivered by seven local authorities plus the National Transport Authority, it is a mix of seemingly every possible solution, including weird stuff like contraflow bike lanes, and bike lanes between on-street parking and the footpath).
Berlin certainly qualifies. If not by metric, then by vibe. Lightyears ahead of Chicago which I rate as a good city to bike in the US (and getting better under the current batch of aldercreatures).
143km sounds like quite a bit though, especially since separated bike lanes are usually for main thoroughfares, whereas many low-traffic side streets you simply bike down the middle.
A lot of Berlin's is footpath-based, right? They seem to be talking about segregated bike lanes, so that arguably wouldn't qualify (though it _is_ likely much safer than on-road).
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Malmö has some of the best bike lanes in the world, IMO even better than Amsterdam and Copenhagen, who I'd say are top tier. Literally 2 meters wide at some points and separated by divider from even walking traffic
Forgot that one. Yes, with its low density and flat ground Malmo is a good candidate for cycling and they did it well. It will not take long before they are up to Dutch standards.
Comparison with Amsterdam is maybe not fair as Amsterdam has the worst cycling infrastructure of The Netherlands.