Danes riding their bikes less often than they did 25 years ago

Danes bikes less than 25 years ago:Photo: pixabay.com

Although at times it is so close between the bikes in Danish cities that it it is difficult to get anywhere, the neighbours to  the south are riding their bikes less often than they did 25 years ago, according to Vejdirektoratet.

In only two of the last 15 months there has been an increase in bicycle use compared with the year before,  Jyllands-Posten writes. Director Claus Bondam in the Biker’s association is in no doubt that there has been a decline in bicycle use.

– We ride our bikes a lot less than before. This is partly because of the large number of cheap microcars which have been made available and partly because it has become much more common to own a second car, he explains. The  strongest decline has been outside the big cities, on the countryside. Bondam believes the decline in bicycle use on the countryside, have been affected by, among other things, many schools having closed down.
– The school that the kids rode to no longer exist, the bike director says  and is supported by traffic researcher Harry Lahrmann at Aalborg University.

– The places where poeple bike more often, are also places with very heavy traffic, such as  Copenhagen. Here you have to be an idiot to choose to use the car. In the countryside, on the other hand, you use the car because it’s cheap, and if both parents have a car, more and more children are also driven to school,  Lahrmann states.
Last year, 3.9 percent of all passenger traffic in Denmark carried out by bicycle.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today