Athens to Freiburg

I was lucky enough to do some traveling around Europe last year. There are lots of thoughts about cycling and cycling infrastructure from that trip - but the biggest contrast came when we flew from Athens to Freiburg (via Frankfurt). It was a sudden change in climate and cyclists.

Athens isn't a safe place to be riding bike. The central part of Athens has become more pedestrianized, but it's still not a safe place to bike. It's not really that great a place to walk either.

Athens has no bike infrastructure that we could see, outside of the tourist pedestrian areas. The high number of cars, narrow streets and basic disregard for most of the rules of the road from drivers have inevitable results.

Drivers will park their cars everywhere: crosswalks, every bit of a corner, curb cuts, on the sidewalk and wherever. Helping make sidewalks and walking unfriendly to most and impossible for the elderly or disabled. Athens has a whopping 816 vehicles for every 1,000 residents and the result is the crowding out of everything but cars.

We didn't see anyone on a bike in a couple of days in Athens - despite it being 15c, warm and sunny and just beautiful November days.

The next day were in Freiburg, Germany. Freiburg is a safe place to be riding a bike. There are lots of bike lanes and lots of public transport in the form of slow moving trams. Cars are moving slowly, slowed down often by infrastructure focused on trams, cyclists and pedestrians.

It was -1c and snowing in Freiburg. There were more cyclists than cars. This is what one intersection looked like:

Critics of bike infrastructure, especially in Vancouver, will often say that the reason people don't cycle is because of the weather. People won't cycle "because it's too cold, or too wet" they claim.

I know the numbers drop in bad weather, we can all see that, but it doesn't stop people. Going from Athens to Freiburg was a stark and you could see the immediate difference. Freiburg was cold, but had great safe infrastructure that encourages you to ride.

As another data point, how about this school in Finland:

1000 out of 1200 kids in this school in Oulu, Finland, arrive by bicycle, even in winter. Today it was -17C.

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