Oslo is #18 on that list, not too shabby. Kathmandu is in a valley.
People act like I'm some kind of freak when I arrive at work on my bike in the middle of the winter. But I remind them that there are people who work all day outdoors in places like Alaska and Canada, and 20 minutes on a bike doesn't even come close.
Now, I do have the luxury of flexible hours at my workplace, but (for instance) my daughter doesn't, and she manages just fine.
On the way said "only three more mountains to go till we're home"! I asked "WTF?" and he explained that's what they call the bridges over the canals.
This is one of the intersections we went through right after one of the mountains, showing how much the local culture affects the traffic safety and bicycle friendliness as much as the geography:
Says you, I clicked 22 minutes after you posted, and got the WP install page. Like you, I sympathize; no one deserves this on their Saturday.
I clicked again, though, to get a repro and it was back. :shrug:
Completely agree with you, I've traveled with my bike to many cities in Europe, the Netherlands in general has a fantastic bike infrastructure, not even sure why it's called "Copenhagenize" since I go to Copenhagen quite often and compared to Dutch's bike infrastructure it's still not on par to it. It's definitely great but the Dutch have it ahead.
Ooops.
Cars dominate the topology.
That's a very {Plateau,reddit,no-kids}-centric view.
But if your point is that North American cities all tend to have the same downtown/suburban contrasts, you are quite right.
People who live $Downtown usually have walkable neighbourhoods and perhaps even access to underground transit. People who live outside the centre of the city mostly end up depending on a private vehicle.
Bicycles are part of the mobility culture in Montreal. But Car Cancer has the same effect everywhere.
They do. Also people who use bicycles in Montreal are disproportionately males and mostly of the certain age group. That's very apparent if you stay for ~10 minutes near Grande Bibliothèque for example or any other relatively busy piste cyclable. If you call it a 'mobility culture' it a very niche one. Bicycling is a thing for very specific demographics in Montreal in comparison with Amsterdam and even with Eastern European cities.
Interestingly that high schoolers are not biking that much in Montreal, again in comparison. Biking to school was/is an exception where I live(d) in Montreal, i.e. Le Sud-Ouest, NDG.
And yet it is relatively successful in Montreal (as TFA says). If we are completely honest, bicycling could be called a niche activity in most of North America.
> Bicycling is a thing for very specific demographics in Montreal in comparison with Amsterdam and even with Eastern European cities.
For students, for example.
I did say, "Bicycling is part of the mobility culture of Montreal". I did not claim more, and I also said that it's a controversial topic. On the positive side, Bixi has been a relative success compared to other Canadian cities.[1]
(You know Bixi, so I'll add a link for others to read.)
[1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixi_(bicycle_share_system)
Also, Quebec is not a city. The city is called "Quebec City" just as how New York and New York City are very different places.
The thing is: after a snow fall, they prioritize the bike roads/lanes before taking care of the roads used by cars.
When I was living in Switzerland, I kept a set of spare wheels with studded tires for those days with risk of ice. Riding on packed snow is perfectly fine on regular tires and ice is not dangerous when you have studded tires.
That's proof that there's either a lot of progress to be made, or the local culture just isn't as tolerant to the cold.
Cycling around -10 works just fine if the roads have been taken care of (which, in your example, doesn't seem to be case, as apparently they're covered in ice).
With decent infrastructure, the difference between cycling 10 degrees above and 10 degrees below freezing is a matter of outfit.
Granted in a bona fide blizzard like today, i am choosing the bus instead. But this is the biggest snowfall in several years, not exactly a frequent problem.
Not sure how this index is being calculated (site breaks a lot), but my general feeling was that Denmark is just better at marketing than actual infrastructure when comparing to Stockholm at least
Amsterdam is miles ahead in terms of infrastructure. This ranking dilutes the most important thing to get these results : good bike lancés everywhere with no discontinuity.
Disclaimer : I've built villes.plus, an open source automated evaluation of bike lanes. 100 points, compute itineraries in "secure" mode with Brouter between these points, count the % of secured km -> score.
Amsterdam tops at 8/10. Bordeaux is at 3/10, Nantes 2/10.
Feel free to suggest a better algorithm ! It's version 2, issues already discuss missing important OSM tags.
Dutch urbanists have found that bike lanes are very important when streets used by cars are unaltered. Once you implement a lot of traffic calming features and cars never reach 30kph comfortably, bike lanes aren't that important and then streets can be shared across all users.
Of course it is. See % of safe km as a minimal condition, not as perfection.
Note that bike lane ! = safe km. You're right. There are bad bike lanes and good peaceful streets. See other comment for algorithm.
20 km/h streets are counted.
Amsterdammers prefer to think of themselves as kilometers ahead. ;)
There are neighborhoods in cities like Amsterdam where bicycle theft is pretty much expected to happen no matter how many locks you buy, but in smaller towns there's barely a need to lock your bike at all during the day.
Enforcing the laws against bike thieves would be 100x more effective in promoting biking than building anything.
And CPD can investigate all they want, CPD, like any other police department, cannot put people in prison. The DA has to press charges and prosecute in the court, which won't happen with any DA in any major city against homeless (otherwise all homeless would have been already in prison).
And no, the DA does not withhold prosecution for theft based on ones housing status.
(Since you seem unaware: being homeless is not illegal)
This argument makes even less sense then. You proclaim that stealing bike parts is an absurd idea and never happens based on the people you know, yet now you say that you don't know any people whose bike was stolen? If you believe things that don't happen to people you know are absurd and don't happen, then should not you be consistent and believe that bikes don't get stolen? Or, if you admit that bikes get stolen, even though not from the people you know, then should not you also be open to the idea that bike parts get stolen too, even though not from the people you know?
>And no, the DA does not withhold prosecution for theft based on ones housing status.
That could be very true and DA does not charge any bike thieves regardless of their housing status, but still the effect is the same - homeless bike thieves are never charged and convicted (using "never" statistically, probably there are some convictions but nowhere close enough to make bike theft dangerous for the criminals). Since you seem unaware: drive around and observe homeless riding bikes and guiding another one or two. Sometimes you can even see bolt cutters on them. Do you think they do this on the way from their bolt-cutting job to the bike-valet job?
Bike thieves are charged, regardless of housing. Why would their housing affect that?
I can't say I've ever seen a homeless person riding a bike with other bikes in tow. There are plenty of homeless people i see around, though, so I'm not convinced you're describing a real problem.
It's also very unsettling that you won't refer to them as homeless people.
eta: even the rabid inner-suburb Facebook boomers here who never shut up about the homeless people in my area have never brought up the things you're describing, I've never seen any such information in local media, which is always happy to say anything and everything negative about homeless people. I have zero reason to think homeless people are more likely to steal bikes, nor less likely to be prosecuted for doing so; far as i can tell, neither do you
Source for these claims. "People I know" is not really a source.
>Bike thieves are charged, regardless of housing. Why would their housing affect that?
Bike thieves are not charged, why do you believe they are? How do you explain massive bike chop shops operating in the open in homeless camps? Do you think they bought all those bikes and just disassemble and reassemble them as a hobby? Should not they be able to afford rent if they can afford $10K+ bikes they sometimes have?
>so I'm not convinced you're describing a real problem.
That's a given, you are a part of the problem this is why you can't see it. Who do you think steals all the bikes? Where do homeless get all their bikes? Do think for 1 minute, it will come to you.
I've never seen a report of a bike chop shop in a homeless encampment in Chicago.
I'm not aware of a great number of homeless people who have bikes. I've certainly never seen anyone on a $10k bike on the city streets, regardless of housing status.
The bikes that are stolen are largely stolen by organized rings, and "scrappers" who drive up and down the alleys grabbing any scrap metal not tied down. They're not cutting bikes off racks, but they're taking ones that aren't locked up. I don't know any homeless people that own trucks, so you?
They're not being stolen by homeless people. I mean I'm obviously not saying no homeless person has ever stolen a bike, I'm saying that it's not a significant source of bike theft.
Why do you use homeless as a noun, and not an adjective? Do you also refer to Black people, gay people, or Jewish people this way?
Regardless: bike theft is not a part of the calculation for people to ride a bike, at least here. #1 reason is "riding in traffic is too scary." Reducing bike theft does nothing for those people; it's already not even on their minds when making the decision. (That's your claim, btw, so back it up if you feel like it)
What you experience now is called "cognitive dissonance" - the thing you want to believe is proven to be not true and you are making things up to keep believing it.
What evidence do you have to support your claims that people choose not to bike because of theft, and that theft isn't prosecuted based on housing status?
Why do you use homeless as a noun to refer to people?
Really? After finding out that the police reports you have also "seen" do not actually include charges you now have seen the DA pressing charges while strolling through the court house and walking into random arraignment hearings, I presume? And you probably did not catch any names of the perpetrators, right?
>What evidence do you have to support your claims that people choose not to bike because of theft
Talk to people perhaps? I figure you don't bike and people you know don't either, so, instead of a court house how about hanging at an LBS and asking people working there and the customers?
>and that theft isn't prosecuted based on housing status
That's not something I claimed, I said that bike theft is not prosecuted period. But homeless also are not charged with the whole bunch of crimes they commit regularly: trespassing, public intoxication, traffic violations, disturbance of peace etc. You can ask a local PD or inquiry your DA office about that.
>Why do you use homeless as a noun to refer to people?
Because it's a noun referring to such people? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20homeless
Anyway, i know for absolute fact that bike thieves have been charged by the Chicago DA. Here's proof: https://cwbchicago.com/2024/09/man-stole-bike-from-cta-stati...
So there. I can prove the DA is willing to charge bike thieves, you have a bunch of conjecture scapegoating homeless people and denying reality.
> Talk to people perhaps
I talk to people at bike shops, i talk to my coworkers, i talk to people at the bars, i talk to my friends. Unlike you, i live here, i bike nearly everywhere, and follow local media/social media. The problems you're describing aren't real and you've done nothing to prove they are.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/7/3/18365620/chicago-parol...
https://abc7chicago.com/post/teens-charged-in-attempted-bike...
https://www.oakpark.com/2009/07/28/7-arrested-on-bike-theft-...
You can present evidence for your claims at any time
How do people call the homeless in Chicago? I've lived on the West Coast, in the South, and in the Midwest (not in Illinois though), and people called them "homeless" everywhere. It's obviously intentional because I am referring to the homeless and it would be strange to call them something else.
>Anyway, i know for absolute fact that bike thieves have been charged by the Chicago DA. Here's proof
Wow, a story from more than a year ago. It does seem you are correct, bike theft is so rare in Chicago and the police is vigilant, the last bike thief they caught was probably that guy and they did not have any bikes stolen since lol
As I said, bike thieves are never charged statistically. Surely there are some unlucky ones like that individual, who probably stole from somebody connected to the police. But, again, visit an encampment and observe hundreds of bikes and parts there. Those are not bought in stores.
> Unlike you, i live here, i bike nearly everywhere, and follow local media/social media. The problems you're describing aren't real and you've done nothing to prove they are.
Right, you bike everywhere and yet you never had bike stolen and don't know anybody who had a bike stolen. In Chicago, no less.
This is correct.
1. You said theft is the main reason people don't bike. Prove it.
2. You said homeless people aren't prosecuted for theft. Prove it.
We refer to "homeless people" as "homeless people," we don't just say "homeless" as if they're something different than a person (and don't be sly, you never said "the homeless," you said "homeless," alone, using the adjective as a noun, which seems intentionally degrading)
Bike theft is in fact pretty common? Bike thieves are charged when police luck into catching the thief like a block from the scene, but the police will be the first to tell you you aren't getting your bike back. I have friends who've had trackers on their bike, could pinpoint the actual location of the bike, and zero help from the police.
I agree with you about the connection to homelessness.
Really the only points I'm willing to push are:
1. Theft is not a major deterrent for people considering whether or not to ride a bike,
2. Homeless people are not spared from prosecution, nor are they particularly more likely to steal bikes.
You're definitely not wrong about recovery, but that's a somewhat different issue than "DAs refuse to prosecute thieves based on housing status"
Don't get me wrong, I'd never wanna give anyone the impression CPD is ever going to do anything useful at all lol :)
I think I have space in my pool shed or my other shed. Worst case I will put them in one of my many empty rooms.
Investment is the issue. Cities and countries largely aren't willing to invest anywhere close to the same money into bikes the same way they do cars, and then everyone feigns surprise that this somehow makes biking harder and less popular.
This is not to say it must be cars. It can be other forms of transit like bus/subway. Of course standing in an unsheltered area waiting for a bus is also highly undesirable. The windchill makes this literally dangerous.
Perhaps there is a cultural barrier here? or perhaps you are not familiar with real winter.
More generally, infrastructure isn't everything. Tokyo small streets with absolutely no markings can be way safer and bike friendlier than a bright lane in the middle of constant car traffic.
I'll note the company doing the ranking is based on Paris, so familiarity might hide many of the flaws.
"Usage and Reach" is ranked better for Paris than Amsterdam? But in Amsterdam I can safely and efficiently bicycle from anywhere to anywhere, including across the rings, to the countryside and even to the sea, with the kids, and no fear. In Paris, I would not dare to venture outside of the touristic city center, and even there I would keep an eye on kids.
I get why you'd feel unsafe, but IMHO it's the exact opposite effect: 99% of the streets don't have a sidewalk or anything specific for pedestrian, and thus are pedestrian first.
Small kids, dogs, cats, elderlies will be walking in the middle of the street. As a result cars drive way slower than they'd do in Paris and they need to be way more alert to what's happening. Every small street is basically the same as the pedestrian zone in the middle of Paris.
Also, the Netherlands is in its entirety covered in separated infrastructure optimized over decades. Just take a look at how anemic Denmark's infrastructure is outside the cities (https://www.opencyclemap.org/).
The note about Copenhagenize being a consulting firm probably explains why the list is so full of weird and arbitrary choices.
At least their method is somewhat open (though I can't find the raw data they used/compensation factors/calculations): https://copenhagenizeindex.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/COP...
Things like "usage of cargo bikes", "percentage of women on bikes", "presence of NGOs", "media tone" all make for rather arbitrary outliers depending on how much they weigh in the final score.
Austin TX plants random, worn out, unpainted, leftover, camouflaged concrete shapes that serve no discernible positive purpose in the middle of city streets frequented by motorcycles, pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, and skaters. That's how much of a shit they give about anyone not in a truck or a rented Slingshot.
I keep meaning to cycle DC and Portland.
smyk1777•2mo ago