As things stand now Architects, Urban Designers and Urban Planners from all over the world flock to Denmark to see good, well considered and sustainable architecture, urban design and city planning. Soon the Danish people can expect to see an influx of visitors from the Traffic and Transportation Planning and Engineering fraternity.

Count me in amongst the latter.

Motorists think that roads are built on gasoline taxes. Well, that’s partially true. Bicyclists also pay taxes: income, property, sales, all of which go toward road building. But bicyclists don’t get represented on the streets of America; their share is squandered on motorists. Even though their needs are tiny, they don’t get met. Bicyclists learn patience, which tends to make them forgive the fact that they are constantly being cheated. $200,000 is spent on motorists for every $1 spent on bicyclists.

In countries where fuel costs the equivalent of $5/gallon, there’s real interest in bicycling. When prices spiked over $4 in USA, a bunch of bikes showed up; there ARE about 55 million of them out there, somewhere. NYC gets more cyclists on average daily than Copenhagen, ~600,000, but much more should be expected in a city 6 times larger. All of RI doesn’t get as many bicycle trips annually as Copenhagen has daily.

Surface transportation including busses, subways trains, trolleys are all well and good, but what do you do when you get off them? Walk great distances? If you were able to take your bike along, you’d have a ready alternative. But in Providence the roadnet is also against you, despite the pathetic recent attempt to get motorists to share by installing a bunch of incorrect signs. You don’t think they spent all of that $350,000 grant just on these few signs, do you?