Welcome to Copenhagen, although if you’re a fan of two-wheeled transportation, you’ll probably come to know it as bicycle heaven.

Copenhagen is the city with more bikes than people, at a rate of 5 bikes to 4 people. Many cities in Europe have taken steps to make cycling the dominant form of transportation in cities, but Copenhagen is the gold standard among them.

When polled about why they choose cycling:

29% said that cycling is the cheapest available option to them. This one is a no-brainer. A bike costs way less than a car, is cheaper to service, doesn’t require you to spend money on gas, is easy to store and doesn’t require you to pay for parking, has no licensing/ownership/insurance fees attached and the city is perfectly designed to accommodate them.
56% of people said it’s because it’s the fastest option available. This is because, as mentioned above, Copenhagen is cycling heaven. The streets were designed to accommodate cyclists. There’s plenty of places to park a bike.
Cycling is easy. It takes a couple of seconds to hop on your bike and start moving. It takes just as long to find a spot to put your bike (whereas trying to find a parking space for a car in pretty much every city, including Copenhagen, will fill you with homicidal rage).

Bicycles are small, so even if there’s a lot of them, traffic doesn’t slow you down by much. In a city setting with local speed limits, cars have no advantage in terms of speed.

People who live in car-dominated cities might have a hard time imagining a place where a simple bicycle is the more effective means of getting around, but in Copenhagen, it’s just an every-day thing.

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