Bicycle City – The G+L in February 2023

Driving bans, rising parking fees, car-shaming: the days of the private car seem to be numbered. Even the International Motor Show IAA is focusing – at least officially – on mobility instead of horsepower in 2021. Meanwhile, city governments are promoting the bicycle-friendly city. In February, G+L will examine what realistic chances we have of implementing and experiencing the bike-friendly metropolis.

By the way: we in the G+L editorial team were already pretty tired of just philosophizing about mobility in 2022. That’s why we dedicated three issues last year to the topic of “The future of mobility” and presented a range of concrete solutions and projects from selected cities around the world. In the February 2023 issue of G+L, we are broadening the scope of the topic even further and looking for bicycle-friendly cities. The February issue is available in a bundle with our mobility series here at a special price.

Regardless of whether you own a car, use one or not: 80 percent of the costs that we city dwellers pay annually for the pure provision of mobility (the so-called external mobility costs) go to car traffic. This figure was recently published by the Technical University of Munich in the study “Ending the myth of mobility at zero costs: An external cost analysis”. According to the study, a petrol car costs society 100 euros per journey (100 euros!) and an electric car 89 euros. The remaining 20 percent is divided between bicycles, buses, pedestrians, e-scooters, etc., according to the publication. The recommendation of the responsible Chair of Settlement Structure and Transport Planning? Switching to bicycles creates 59 percent savings, switching to the subway 75 percent.

Almost 60 percent savings – no wonder it feels like every second city in Germany is currently proclaiming itself a cycling city. In purely economic terms, the bicycle city is enormously attractive. But the image of the bicycle city is also convincing. It stands for health, sustainable mobility and the future. This is confirmed by numerous studies and surveys, but also (according to the Copenhagenize Index 2019) by the world’s leading cycling cities Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Utrecht. However, there is no national or international definition of what a cycling city actually is.

For this reason, in this G+L we set out in search of a definition of the term, collected outstanding measures in terms of cycling infrastructure, analyzed why Berlin and Munich are lagging so far behind their goals when it comes to cycling cities and what exactly the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport is aiming to achieve with a volume of around twelve million euros for endowed professorships in the field of cycling.

Spoiler alert and big surprise: Germany is still miles away from being a cycling nation. At the same time, more caution should be exercised when proclaiming cycling cities. Neither cities nor city dwellers everywhere are ready for this yet. Even though bicycle sales figures have been steadily going through the roof for a few years now (in 2021, sales of bicycles and e-bikes reached a new high of 6.65 billion euros in Germany). Some critics claim that the bicycle city is even accepting significantly more accidental deaths. Relying solely on bicycles in the mobility transition would therefore be like trying to ride a bicycle without handlebars.

The magazine is available here in our store. Plus: The magazine is available as a bundle with our mobility series at a special price here.

In our January 2023 issue, we looked at how the next generation of landscape architects will want to work in the future. Read more here.