Last week we wrote about Copenhagen’s commitment to providing bikes for conference delegates to ride. But it’s not just the UN conference that’s making the city embrace cycling, bike culture has been a big deal in the Danish capital for quite some time now. Danes believe in the power of cycling so much, that the city of Copenhagen wants 50% of the population to be commuting by bike in the metropolitan area by 2015. That would be a 40% increase from today’s numbers.
What’s the environmental impact of commuting by bike? In the U.S. alone, we could save 462 million gallons of gas a year by increasing the number of bicycle trips by just half a percentage point: from 1% to 1.5% of all trips.
But back to Copenhagen. How exactly do you inspire a whole city to commit to two wheels? Come up with a sleek design for bike share cycles, providing everyone in the city with access to two wheeled adventures. Earlier this year there was a contest to do just that, and this week the winner was announced. The winning designs — called My Loop and Open Bike — are so cool, we figured we’d feature them here to give you a visual of what cycling in Copenhagen will look like in the very near future.
Images via: Below the Clouds (our favorite Swedish design blog!!)
As the world gathers in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, we’re following along by covering all sorts of aspects of the issue and the conference. You can read all of our climate related posts here.
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