Tomorrow Bill & I will be boarding the Emerald Princess and sailing out of Copenhagen. We are both really glad that we had the opportunity to spend a week here and get to know the city so well. One of my very first impressions of Copenhagen was the number of bicycles EVERYWHERE. Upon our arrival, we took the train from the airport into Copenhagen’s central station. As we left the train station for the 4 block walk to our hotel, this is what we saw:
We soon realized why biking around the city is so popular. There are bike racks all over, dedicated bike lanes along most streets, and no hills! We were told that 80% of all city residents own bikes and use them as their primary means of transportation. They have various accessories to make the bikes practical for daily use, and I’m not talking about just the usual baskets and saddlebags. Below you can see a child carrier built onto the back of a bike. This is one of a whole block of bikes parked on the street by the apartment dwellers in the adjoining building.
Since bicycles are so much a part of the traffic, they have their own traffic signals.
A possible explanation for the popularity of bikes: Cars are taxed at the extremely unfavorable rate of 180% of the purchase price and gas costs over $8 per gallon, so a bicycle sounds like a pretty darn good idea!
4 comments:
Hi!
Glad to hear that everyone got there fine and that you are having such a great time. On Saturday there was a bomb scare (a guy with a fake bomb) at LaGuardia airport and a lot of flights were canceled -- on the news on Sunday morning the teaser blurb was "bomb scare at New York airport, many stranded" so, of course, I had to listen to see if it was Newark and if Sandy, Beth, and Ray were stranded!
All is fine here. Yesterday we had really bad storms and our yard was a lake -- not as bad as it can get -- not up to where it is about to go into the house -- but most of the yard was under water. The creek down the street overflowed and flooded the other side of the street. But other than that everything seems to be fine here in PA -- if you don't mind passing the "fine here in PA" message on to Sandy and Beth -- thanks!!
Keep up the great work on the blogs!! Looks like a great time!!
Love, Susan
So, I'm curious... since there are so many people biking, are most residents skinny too?
Glad to hear/see you guys are having fun. Are the girls hoarse yet?
To answer Melanie's question: YES! Almost everyone is thin. We're inspired to ride our bikes more once we get home. We'll see how long that lasts! I already know we'll think it's too hot, but the Danes ride even in the rain.
And to answer Kristin: No, not hoarse yet, but we were only together a few hours so far . . .
Post a Comment