Race to be the bike capital of Europe guess which city is winning

Friday, 26 Jul, 2011 0

In Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, London and Vienna Bike schemes now proliferate

Everybody loves a bike and now the focus is on green transport the bike has come back in a big way. After all there is nothing more sustainable as a source of power than the human body. Plus, of course, bikes keep you fit, help you see more tourist sites in less time and they’re great fun.

So it’s no wonder that fun European destinations are piling into bikes in a big way.

There’s a race to be the bike capital of Europe and guess which city is winning?

There are now nearly 2,000 bikes in Berlin with the ‘Call a bike’ DB scheme operating from nearly 80 depots around the city.

And it’s now biking rather than waltzing Vienna – more than 1,000 Citybikes can be rented and returned 24 hours a day from one of the 60 stations throughout the city.

In Brussels, however, there are now 180 depots and 2,500 bikes and although the ‘Villo’ scheme has had some criticism, it is now operating reasonably smoothly.

Copenhagen Bycykler has won prizes for its scheme – this first wide scale city bike scheme has over 1,000 bikes and 110 stands to pick them up at.

But London is big and with over 5,000 bikes and 315 docking stations it currently leads the city bike schemes.

And the queen of them all? Obviously Paris, with 20,000 bicycles and over 1,200 stations the Velib scheme is just gargantuan.

But, what about Amsterdam – the funky bike-friendly capital of Europe? No big city bike scheme yet – but they were certainly early bike adopters! This most bicycle-friendly city in the world is a centre of bicycle culture – 38% of all journeys in the city are made by bicycle. There are about 700,000 bicycles in the city and every year, about 100,000 of them are stolen and 25,000 end up in the canals!

Valere Tjolle: Valere is editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite 2011 Special Offers HERE

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