For the past century, most US cities have gone to extremes to accommodate cars. As a result, we have sprawling conurbations well suited to cars but less so for human beings. Without a car, it is difficult for many Americans to reach even everyday destinations like schools, stores, and parks as well as work places. Consequently, gas prices are always a hot election issue despite the fact that political leaders have very little control over how much we pay at the pump.
My wife Adrian and I recently visited ten European cities that have created and/or retained urban densities and transportation improvements that allow people get around on foot, by bike, or on public transportation. Many Americans assume Europe’s success with ecomobility resulted spontaneously from centuries-old building styles or some innate fondness for walking and bicycling. In fact, these planet-friendly transportation solutions are largely the result of planning decisions that often irritate or even enrage drivers who feel they should be given the same road-hogging entitlement as their counterparts in the United States.
Bremen, Germany, a city of over 500,000 people rarely gets as much recognition as Copenhagen, Denmark, or Amsterdam and Utrecht in Netherlands. Nevertheless, Bremen has pioneered bike zones in Germany and taken significant steps toward creating a better balance between pedestrians, bicycles, transit, and cars within the finite space of the public right of way.
Bremen became the first city in Germany to declare an entire neighborhood as a bike zone. In the Neustadt district, bikes and pedestrians have priority. Some streets here prohibit cars altogether. Cars are allowed on other streets but the maximum speed limit is 30km/hour or 18.6 miles per hour. Humans on foot or bike are much more likely to survive a crash when cars are traveling at these speeds. In addition to safety, when cars proceed slowly and cautiously, the neighborhood is quiet and peaceful.
Bremen provides bike lanes on most arterial streets. The bike plan calls for eight cross-city cycle routes with bikeways emblazoned with red thermoplast to remind motorists that bikes have priority. The city supplements this bike-friendly red carpet with a green network through its extensive park system providing separated paths usable for exercise and recreation as well as car-free mobility. As a result, 25 percent of all trips here are on bicycles and the city is ranked as the eleventh most bike-friendly city in the world on the Copenhagenize Index.
The cycling plan for Hamburg, Germany, establishes 14 veloroutes, 12 or which radiate from the city center and two concentric rings connecting the spokes of this wheel. In addition to accommodating bicycle access to most parts of the city, this design links to trails that lead into the countryside, like the Alsterwanderweg which extends into nature preserves outside the city.
As in Hamburg, the bike plan for Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France, incorporates 12 radial pathways intersected by two circular routes. Several spokes of this wheel follow the Garonne River and various canals including the Canal du Midi, or Canal des Deux Mers which parallels a 750-kilometer bike trail from the Mediterranean Sea through Toulouse to the Atlantic Ocean via Bordeaux. Toulouse, France has also dedicated two bridges in its city center exclusively to walking, cycling, and transit.
Bern, Switzerland realized that it had maxed out its public transportation opportunities and developed a plan aimed at increasing cycling’s mode split to 20 percent of all trips with another third accomplished through walking and transit. The plan ambitiously declares that this nation’s capital city will also become the bike capital of Switzerland.
The German Bicycle Club rates Hanover as the second-most bike-friendly city in Germany (after Bremen). A big portion of Hanover’s downtown is already pedestrianized. The mayor states that Hanover will not declare war on cars but commits to building a car-free downtown by 2030. To motivate walking, the city maintains a painted “red thread” that starts at its central train station and guides pedestrians to the most popular destinations in and around downtown.
Lyon, the third largest city in France (after Paris and Marseille), has transformed the left bank of the Rhone River into a multi-use trail for walking, running, and rolling. At the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers, Lyon has built a new bridge across the Rhone exclusively for pedestrians, cyclists, and trams. The city pedestrianized two arterial streets in 1974 which inspired the Lyon Protocol, a proposal to slowly pedestrianize the entire portion of the city between the two rivers.
Our last stop was Bordeaux, France, which aims to create a peaceful, “soothed” city with a plan that expands the pedestrian zone in the city center from 100 to 160 acres, creates car free streets near schools, and established a 19 mile-per-hour speed limit on almost 90 percent of the city’s streets. As in Toulouse and Lyon, only transit, bikes, and pedestrians are now allowed on the historic Pont de Pierre, the 19th Century stone-arch bridge commissioned by Napoleon which is the only bridge across the Garonne River in the city center.
One lesson from these cities is that people will walk, bike and use public transportation if given ecomobility options that get them safely and efficiently to where they want to go. Perhaps more importantly, these cities demonstrate that the main impediment to planet-friendly transportation is not historical traditions but political will.
