Aaron Angert
Stepping Stone 23 Guide
"As a 22-year-old, I inexplicably exchanged keys to the USA (and a beat-up pickup truck) for a new life in Denmark. Now, fifteen years later, I’m a fully-fledged immigrant with two Danish children who I love hauling everywhere in our front-loading family cargo bike."
Bicycles literally and figuratively rule my adopted city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Indeed, Copenhageners, as a collective, own five times as many bikes as cars – and they make use of them. In 2019, half of all trips to workplaces and educational institutions were by bike (followed, in order, by public transportation, walking and, lastly, individual cars).
"Copenhageners bike year-round, rain or shine, wind or calm."
Biking is so common that it’s not unusual to spot a 70-year-old smoking a cigarette while calmly pedaling her easy-rider. Commuters routinely don business-casual suits and stylish dresses while pedaling to work. Families with young children often opt for tricked-out trikes with room for up to 4 kids in the front compartment, while Mom or Dad pedal from the rear.
There is actually a bicycle rush hour each morning and evening. Imagine bunches of pedaling people, traveling in pods of up to 200 at a time in each direction. If you are thinking that biking in Copenhagen is an environmental badge or the by-product of physical fitness mania, forget that. In Copenhagen biking is simply the easiest, cheapest and most fun way to get around town.
I moved to Copenhagen from Pennsylvania as a 22-year-old. Now, many years later, I own a walk-up apartment in the city with my wife and our two young kids. I work at a large Danish company and am responsible for international strategy and landing new partnerships; my wife works in a specialized digital communications company. Our kids attend a public daycare, one mile away from our home. We bike a lot, just like everyone else. My morning commute looks like this:
• 8:15 AM: Round up kids and their helmets; remember to bring small electric bike battery powered mostly by wind energy.
• 8:20 AM: Strap the kids into their seatbelts. If it’s nice outside, open up their canvas canopy, like a convertible; if it’s not so nice, keep the top on so they’re sheltered from the elements, but can still enjoy views of the city from the canopy’s plexi-plastic “window”.
• 8:20-8:30 AM: Zip over to the kids’ daycare on fully separated lanes (all bikes in same direction). Kids enjoy front-row views of their neighborhood, including bakeries, storefronts, playgrounds, gardens…
• 8:40-8:50 AM: Kid-free, I ride over to work, up a big hill utilizing a push from the electric motor if I’m feeling lazy; and I park in the office’s underground bike parking area.
Copenhageners bike year-round, rain or shine, wind or calm. For context, there are more rainy days here than in Seattle; the average annual temperature is colder than New York; and in the winter it gets darker much earlier here than in Minnesota. But for the Danes, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.
Please know that I am not making a pitch for you to opt for a bike instead of a car. That’s your business. But as someone born and socialized in the U.S., I would expect that Danes—possessing one of the world’s highest per-capita incomes and dwelling on an island in the frigid, North Atlantic Sea—would opt to get around in comfortable personal automobiles rather than to rely on bikes. So, why is it that the behavior of the Danes seems to defy logic? Here are three key factors:
i-Biking is supported by an amazing infrastructure: You almost have to see it to describe it. Imagine the entire roads system of the city re-worked to ensure dedicated, separate bike lanes, plus traffic signals that guarantee right-of-way to bikes over cars; and bike “highways” extending to the suburbs such that traffic lights are timed “green” for cyclists to enable them to keep pedaling. Along with this biking infrastructure, comes comprehensive and convenient metro bus and train services. For example, say you have your bike with you, but need to take the train further than you care to pedal? No problem. Every train has at least one full coach car dedicated to bike storage with nifty readily accessible storage compartments.
ii-Biking is healthy: Copenhageners attest that not only is biking a good way to get from Point A to B, it’s also a nice way to get regular physical exercise.
iii-Biking is social: From my bike saddle, I feel like I am in direct contact with the city—i.e., I am not separated by a windshield bubble. This makes it easy to spontaneously stop at the sight of something new or interesting; or to spot a friend or colleague going in the same direction and pull off for a chat or cup of coffee.
