You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.
Cycling with friends in Helsinki.
From my professional point of view as the CEO of an urban-planning company, living in a city that is unrivaled in the world regarding the amount of data it gathers is both a blessing and a curse. Actually, it’s like an addiction. While my company harvests its own garden of data, the City of Copenhagen feeds us with an inexhaustible variety. When we have to use the City’s data in comparison with other cities’ data, it is always a letdown. “That’s all you have?!” Followed by a sigh. Copenhagen has developed a strong municipal culture of collecting data over many years—collecting it and also learning how to interpret it and how to use it going forward in planning. Not to mention using it to convince skeptics. The City has a website onto which they make all the data freely available. It is currently only in Danish, but the list is long. You can see pretty much everything: where things like fountains, kindergartens, or garbage cans are located, which zones street vendors can operate in, where chargers for electric vehicles can be found, or where the city has current urban-planning projects underway.
Most relevant for my work is the cycling data. There are the maps showing the infrastructure for bikes, and you can see all the spots where bikes were counted. Furthermore, you can click on them to see a PDF with information about when the count was done and all the details that were recorded. It’s El Dorado meets Nirvana.
In late 2016, Copenhagen could reveal that the number of bikes crossing into the city center exceeded the number of cars for the first time since 1970.
The city has over 20 sensors under the asphalt and does regular counts at around 200 locations across the city. It is pleasing to know that many cities are getting their data-collection game face on. Amsterdam has just as many sensors under the cycle tracks as does Copenhagen, but so do other cities, like Oslo and Warsaw.
The first serious example of data being used to convince authorities about the necessity of bicycle infrastructure dates back to 1909.
Around the turn of the last century, the streets along the Lakes in Copenhagen were the busiest in the entire nation for bicycle traffic. The conditions for cyclists, however, left much to be desired. The swarms of cyclists only had the narrow edge of a riding path to use. Back then, the horse-riding crowd hailed from bourgeois circles and enjoyed a jolly good trot on their dedicated paths.
The Danish Cyclists’ Federation, founded in 1905, started lobbying for a cycle track on the route, but the city’s equestrian elite refused to relinquish space. In a case of early nimbyism, these influential citizens from the upper classes felt ownership and wished to protect their privileged infrastructure, so the City was loath to rock the boat. Other equestrian paths in the city had previously been reallocated to cyclists, starting in 1892 with the first dedicated bicycle infrastructure in the world on Esplanaden, so perhaps the elite were tiring of having their riding space reduced. Nevertheless, data won the day. Indeed, it beats mere perception and guessing any day of the week, anywhere.
In many ways, motorists are the new equestrian elite. As André Gorz has written: “Mass motoring effects an absolute triumph of bourgeois ideology on the level of daily life. It gives and supports in everyone the illusion that each individual can seek his or her own benefit at the expense of everyone else.”
A colleague went spelunking in the archive caves of Helsinki and found another interesting historical reference to data collection. He found maps from bicycle counts in 1937 showing not only the best-practice infrastructure network, but also the amazing volume of cyclists. The thickest red lines indicate 10,000 cyclists. Another example that we’ve all been here before.
In 2010, my staff and I were discussing what a list of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world would look like. We couldn’t find anything out there, which was frustrating. In a flash of inspiration, we decided to make that list, and the Copenhagenize Bicycle-Friendly Cities Index was born: www.thecopenhagenizeindex.com. It’s a biannual index that ranks cities based on 14 parameters—all of them data-based. We were surprised by the overwhelming response when we published the first index in 2011. We can discuss whether or not there are too many indices out there, covering every possible subject, but by all accounts the Copenhagenize Index was something that many people were waiting for. Each time we publish it, the interest in it increases. Mayors tweet about it, city councils discuss it, newspapers slap it on the front page.
Bike vs. Car. Traffic volume at select locations in Copenhagen. Data: City of Copenhagen
You can check out the website for the latest list, but what we find most interesting about the entire process is how, since 2011, cities have been trying to improve their data in the interest of making sure that they are fairly represented. In increasing numbers, we receive emails from staff in cities around the world that include the latest data. There is no lobbying involved. They just want to make sure we include them. For whatever it’s worth, the Copenhagenize Index has spurred cities to focus on data just a little bit more than they used to.
Most cities are much better at collecting data now than ever before. Indeed, my team and I work with client cities such as Long Beach, California, on the subject of learning how to harvest data about cycling and how to use it going forward. Copenhagen started to get serious about it around 1970, just as Amsterdam had done in the mid-fifties. In 1990, Denmark in general began to gather data in much more detail. In late 2016, Copenhagen could reveal that the number of bikes crossing into the city center—past the Lake Ring—exceeded the number of cars for the first time since 1970. It’s a development that’s hard not to get excited about, even though the number of cars crossing the municipal border is still stable.
Old maps of Helsinki with red ink showing infrastructure and bicycle counts in 1937. The thickest red lines denote at least 10,000 cyclists counted. Photo: Marek Salermo
On a similar note, the City uses its data tradition to hand influence to our citizens in the form of a website and an app called “Giv et praj” (or “Give us a shout” in English) that lets citizens report issues live from the front lines of the urban jungle. Maybe there is a garbage can that hasn’t been emptied, a pothole in a cycle track, or a sign that is broken or missing. You can pin it on the map, and the City is exceptional at keeping you updated about the status of your request. If they deem it worthy of attention, they have a good track record of sending out people to fix it within a reasonable time frame. A growing number of similar apps are appearing in cities. Among them, YouPin in Bangkok and See-Click-Fix in New York.
Counting cyclists and other traffic users, and building comprehensive, long-term data sets is incredibly important. So is measuring the costs/ benefits and returns on investments in having a cycling population and building infrastructure for them. We know why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s just a pragmatic approach to moving people around a city in effective ways. But does it pay off? If so, how long does it take? Is it worth it? Does it help? Knowing the answers to these questions makes it easier to understand the efforts and investments and to use that knowledge in planning more infrastructure, as well as drastically shortening the inevitable conversations with skeptics.
Luckily, Copenhagen has its finger on this pulse as well. Since the mid-nineties, the City has published a biannual Bicycle Account — Cykelregnskab in Danish—wherein they measure cyclists’ sense of safety and satisfaction with the various conditions for cycling in the city.
In 2009, the City commissioned a study by an engineering firm, COWI, with the title Samfundsøkonomiske analyser af cykeltiltag—metode og cases (or Socio-economic Analyses of Cycling Projects—Methods and Cases). It’s a fascinating document. For example, they calculated the socio-economic results of Bryggebroen, the first bicycle/pedestrian bridge over the harbor, which opened in 2006. The first new link over Copenhagen Harbor in seven centuries.
They determined that building the bridge had a cost/benefit return of 7.6 percent and a profit of 33 million kroner (about US$5.2 million in 2017). In comparison, the proposed road and rail link from Denmark to Germany, Femern Belt, will give Denmark a cost/benefit return of 6.8 percent, and the best solution for upgrading the rail line between Copenhagen and Ringsted would yield a benefit of 5.8 percent.
The intersection where Gyldenløvesgade meets the Lakes was long the blackest of black spots in the nation for cyclists. Improving the conditions with new infrastructure and recalibrating the light signals to improve safety for cyclists gave us a socio-economic profit of 59 million kroner (about US$9.3 million) and a benefit of 33 percent.
Time and time again, the numbers come out in favor of investing in urban cycling as transport. Without any risk of exaggeration, it is the most cost-beneficial transport form we have ever invented.
The statistic that seems to capture the most imaginations is based on an updated calculation with its roots in the foregoing socio-economic analysis. Every time I ride a bicycle, I put 26 cents right back into society. Pure profit, man. This is because of the health benefits of urban cycling. I will live longer and I’ll be less ill while I’m alive, so I’ll be both more productive and less of a burden on the health system. In addition, if all goes well, when I do die I’ll die quickly, so my fellow taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill for caring for me due to the bad lifestyle choices I made during my life. That is, I (hopefully) won’t need the extensive care required if I am obese or suffer from type 2 diabetes or heart disease. In addition, it is rare that I lose time in traffic when I’m on a bicycle, so society benefits from my getting a full workday in.
Every time someone drives a car 1 km, we pay out 89 cents. We just throw it in a big black hole and never see it again.
On the other hand, every time someone drives a car one kilometer, we pay out 89 cents. We just throw it in a big black hole and never see it again. We have been desperately trying to claw some of that loss back by means of the tax on new cars I mentioned earlier. But in vain. If I were to calculate how much that negative number would be in countries without a tax on new cars, I don’t think I would want to see the result.
Between 2006 and 2016, the City of Copenhagen invested 2 billion kroner (about US$317 million) in bicycle infrastructure and facilities. The cycling citizens of the city save us 1.7 billion kroner (about US$270 million) each year because of the health benefits. I am notoriously bad at math, but even I can figure out that spending US$317 million in a decade is no big deal when we’re saving US$270 million every year. Every time we build one kilometer of cycle track, we get our investment back in under five years. What an astonishing business model.
The growth of bicycle traffic in Copenhagen compared to Aarhus and national levels.
The locations where the City of Copenhagen does permanent traffic counts along the municipal border and around the city center.
Graph showing cycling levels in select cities. The dotted lines are estimates. The gap is World War II. The solid lines show when cities started serious data gathering.
On the ground, we should also consider the massive cost of wear and tear caused by motor vehicles on our roads. A car is estimated to be 16,000 times more destructive to asphalt than bikes are. Even with the finer, more expensive asphalt on cycle tracks, there is still a huge difference.
Professor Lars Bo Andersen from the University of Southern Denmark is one of the most published academics in the world on the subject of the health benefits of having a cycling population. His extensive research has produced a great number of statistics that have to be considered when we’re planning our cities for bicycle traffic.
He says that with the current levels of cycling to work in Denmark, we prevent around 10,000 new cases of cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes—and 2,500 premature deaths—every single year. He has calculated that a child who rides a bike just one kilometer to school is noticeably healthier than a child who walks to school, let alone one who is driven in a car. His research results are consistently confirmed by international studies.
A 2017 study from the University of Glasgow found that cycling to work reduces the risk of cancer by 45 percent, the risk of heart disease by 46 percent, and the risk of premature death caused by those illnesses by 41 percent. And remember, the health benefits of daily cycling are 20 times greater than any risk.
Cyclists waiting for a ship to pass before they cross Bryggebroen.
People! Are you getting all this? We are, quite simply, in possession of a spectacular medicine. One that can both prevent diseases and cure them. The bicycle is a veritable wonder drug. That we are not in a state of constant bicycle infrastructure construction in every city in the world is, frankly, beyond me.
Once in a while the issue of “bikes should pay” rises to the surface like bubbles of methane in Lake Kivu. Of the half a billion citizens in the European Union alone, close to 100 million of them say they regularly ride a bicycle for transport. None of them are inconvenienced by bicycle licenses, least of all the Netherlands or Denmark—the two countries with the highest levels of cycling.
Between 2006 and 2016, the City of Copenhagen has invested $317 million USD in bicycle infrastructure and facilities.
There have been cities elsewhere that have considered bicycle licensing or registration and did some math about what the administrative costs would be. None of them have found that licensing bicycles was cost-efficient. Sometimes we hear calls for a symbolic “appeasement fee”: cyclists paying a fee to get the motorists et al. to shut up—for a while. No matter how you twist and turn it, there is little indication that a license or registration fee would be cost-efficient. So yeah, good luck with your ridiculous bicycle tax, Oregon.
Here are some things to consider from my ragged little bag of opinions: First, imagine the logistical nightmare of registering tens of millions of bicycles. You would need to pay to develop or adapt a computer system to register them, and you would need to hire people to run the system to issue registrations and pay for producing licenses.
Consider the aforementioned impact on the roads. The average car, in 2005, weighed 1,650 kilograms (3,582 pounds). My best guess as to the average weight of a bicycle is about 13 kilograms (30 pounds). Based on those numbers, a bicycle weighs 0.8 percent of a car.
I clearly don’t have a degree in rocket science, but even I can figure out that the weight impact on asphalt by bicycles is marginal—16,000 times less than motor vehicles, as I mentioned. Let’s say that a car registration costs $100, just to pick a number. Based on that figure, a bike registration should then cost 80 cents. But hang on. Then we’ll have to subtract from those 80 cents. A car’s environmental impact is considerable, but a bicycle has none. Let’s say a 50 percent reduction in the 80-cents fee for zero environmental impact, just to pick a number. And I’m being extremely kind.
Okay. Now we’re down to 40 cents per bike. But we need to put cash into the administration fees for running the system. Let’s knock off 35 cents—the rest of the fees will have to come from somewhere else—but that leaves us with a nickel. Five cents. That seems fair.
Wait a minute. We’re not quite done. According the health benefits I wrote about above, society is saving a bundle due to my preferred transport choice. For every kilometer I cycle, I’m putting 26 cents back into the public coffers. I’ve calculated that by cycling 12 kilometers to and from work, plus all the trips to the supermarket, cafés, school, shops, etc., I’m contributing roughly $830 a year, give or take.
I am all for most of that going back into the system. It makes me proud to be able to contribute positively to the society in which I live, through my transport choices. But hey, paying people to cycle is a thing. In Denmark I can get a tax break of 32 cents per kilometer if my cycling commute to work is 24 kilometers or more. As I write this, there is a proposal to lower that distance to 12 kilometers, which would put me, personally, in the zone. That means I would get $998.40 a year back for riding my bike. Keep your nickel and send me $998.35 and we’ll call it quits. Thanks. Love your work.
If a successful businessman or woman bought a city and started looking hard at how to turn it into a profitable business and began by focusing on transport, you would see a drastic reduction in the number of cars in that city. There wouldn’t be money allocated to issuing bike licenses or registration. The money would go instead to bicycle infrastructure and traffic calming, as well as public transport.
If, however, a city or state does implement a program of bike registration, they should go the whole nine yards and start a shoe tax for those pesky pedestrians sponging off our public funds.
The cost-benefit of cycling one kilometer by bike and the lost-benefit of driving a car that distance. Data: City of Copenhagen
The morning rush hour on the world’s busiest bicycle street, Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen, with over 40,000 cyclists a day. And this is just one light cycle.