Northern Europe - decades ahead
The use of healthy and sustainable forms of transport in some northern European countries is so far ahead of the UK as to make any comparison embarrassing. Investment in walking and cycling has been significantly higher, and as a result much higher levels of use are achieved.
The Danish programme of cycle promotion and road safety improvement began only in the 1970s as a clear political decision to reverse the negative implications of motor traffic growth - a decision which took many other countries another 20 years. Cities such as Odense - which managed to reduce the number of child pedestrian casualties by over 80% since 1981 - now also vie for the title of most cycle-friendly city.
Our collaboration with the Danish Road Directorate and expert bodies such as De Frie Fugle and the Danish Cyclists' Federation has been tremendously valuable in our development of technical standards. The Danes publish a number of superb technical documents, many of them in English.
The Swiss public transport system - highly efficient, fully integrated and respected by the public - has been the European flagship for years. Now the national cycle routes, Veloland Schweiz, have brought the sustainable transport dimension to life. Developed by the cycling specialists Velobüro in partnership with the tourist industry, Swiss Railways, local government and commercial sponsors, the routes repaid their investment from tourism revenue in the very first year….. and are now being expanded to cater for other forms of non-motorised user (and so to create new tourism markets).
Most people would regard the Netherlands as a traditional home of cycling, but it is instructive to see how hard the Dutch authorities work to keep their cyclists and recruit new ones: perhaps a country so close to sea level has a better perspective on sustainable transport than most. We turn regularly to Dutch technical guidance from the national technical experts CROW, and information from the local authority specialists group Fietsberaad.
In Germany we have been most impressed by the regional bicycle-friendly towns programme of Nordrhein Westfalen (NRW). Among the most interesting aspects from the perspective of the UK, is that many of the key decisions have not been taken for cycle promotion reasons, but rather to give the NRW a competitive advantage in attracting employment and investment – the towns recognise that cycle-friendly equals people-friendly and their measures create environments that employers want to move to.
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