10大自行车城市

Top 10: Bicycle Cities

There are great cities to have your bike stolen in, and there are great cities to ride your bike in. In New York City, for example, you probably need kryptonite in your lock to maintain some shred of security, and you also need the chutzpah to weave in and out of yellow-cab traffic. It’s an exhilarating ride, mind you, so long as you keep an aggressive pace that includes swearing, spitting, yelling, and the odd digital gesture.

Despite the pitfalls and obstacles that New York presents, it -- like many North American cities -- has upgraded its cycling infrastructure. But as North America tries to accommodate increasing numbers of cyclists, there are many European prototypes that have engineered cities with the bicycle in mind. Scandinavian countries, in particular, boast many bustling city centers designed around the bicycle.

A top-notch bicycle city, then, is one in which bike lanes and paths are well-connected and are incorporated into the city’s major downtown routes. In other words, cycling should be part of the city’s daily fabric. Either that, or the city should demonstrate innovation in accommodating cyclists despite the confines of an urban setting.

Here are our picks for the top 10 bicycle cities in the world.

Number 10
Montreal, Quebec
Although Montreal’s streets are notoriously falling to pieces and full of potholes, it remains one of the best bicycle cities in North America. With over 200 miles of well-kept bike paths, lanes and street signs, Montreal’s infrastructure is easier to navigate for cyclists than it is for drivers. Twice named North America’s top cycling city by Bicycling Magazine, Montreal is a great place to ride a bike, so long as you don’t mind being doored by parked cars and having the odd bike stolen.

Bike tour: The Lachine Canal bike path. This short, nine-mile route winds alongside the Lachine Canal, past Lac-St-Louis, and into Old Montreal where the St. Lawrence River separates the island of Montreal from its south shore.

Number 9
New York City, New York
Of all the bicycle cities on the list, New York is still a work in progress. Inevitably, in a city of over eight million, theft and road safety are major issues for the urban pedaler. New York, though, now installs 400 to 500 new bike racks a year, and by 2009, it will have constructed over 400 miles of new bike lanes and paths. There are even bike paths separated from traffic in a few places, and over 130,000 cyclists use New York’s streets on a daily basis. As concrete jungles go, New York seems like the worst place in the world to ride a bike. But the improved infrastructure is slowly altering New York’s central problem: safety.

Bike tour: The Five Boro Bike Tour. 2007 marked the 30th anniversary of this remarkable tour through New York’s five boroughs. With over 30,000 riders, the tour is the largest of its kind in the U.S., and allows you to ride through 42 traffic-free miles.

Number 8
San Francisco, California
There are easier cities to cycle, and bike theft is rampant here, but San Francisco is a mountainous treat and a classic bicycle city. Just imagine bombing down hills like you’re Steve McQueen and your Peugeot Deluxe is a ’68 Ford Mustang. If, however, you’re just a working urbanite in need of a good bike path, biking has long been central to San Francisco’s transportation infrastructure, with over 40,000 commuters on two wheels.

Bike tour: The Golden Gate Bridge. But after the bridge, be sure to continue north, picking up the Tiburon Loop for 35 miles of rolling hills and vistas of the Bay.

Number 7
San Diego, California
Featuring temperate weather, stunning ocean vistas and 850 miles of bike lanes, San Diego is a rider’s paradise. As Kathy Keehan, executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition describes, “From my backyard, I can get on a trail that goes through a little canyon and connects up to Lake Hodges, which is a huge network of trails.” Unlike some bicycle cities undergoing an explosion of pedal fanaticism, San Diego’s Edenic landscape has incorporated cycling into San Diego’s lifestyle.

Bike tour: The Bayshore Bikeway. Cycle along 24 languid miles that wrap around the San Diego Bay.

Number 6
Barcelona, Spain
Like New York, Barcelona is a cosmopolitan city in eco-flux, expanding its bicycle infrastructure at a frenzied pace. The city has created a “green ring” around the metropolitan area, while introducing a new communal bike service that allows members to pick up a bike from one of 100 stations and leave it at another. As a safeguard against widespread theft, the city is building underground bike parkades.

Bike tour: Seafront Barcelona. Bike lanes stretch the length of Barcelona’s beautiful beaches. Keep your head up, though: The bikini-clad Catalan girls provide some lethal eye candy for an otherwise leisurely bicycle tour.

Number 5
Berlin, Germany
Out of 3.4 million Berliners, less than half own cars. As a result, cycling has become a necessity, so the Berlin senate is investing in a rapid upgrade. With an enviable wealth of parks and forests throughout the city, bike paths are by no means limited to sidewalks and streets. Over the past decade, the number of cyclists in this bicycle city has more than doubled. And by 2016, the city is ambitiously planning to have merged their routes into an uninterrupted network that runs in two traffic rings from the city center out to the suburbs.

Bike tour: The Wall Trail. A newly built $6-million bike trail follows the Berlin Wall for 100 miles of Cold War nostalgia. With mansions, chicken farms and horse stables competing for real estate across the former “death strip” of the Wall, this trail is surely one of the most bizarre and unsettling bike tours around.

Number 4
Seattle, Washington
As one the best bicycle cities around, Seattle provides some phenomenal examples of architectural adaptation. The city has recently completed a beautifully designed bike bridge over I-25, and plans are already in the works to go under I-5 and craft a subterranean mountain bike park, making use of 1.5 acres of hidden land. Another interesting feature of the Seattle bike world is the Velo Swap, an annual bike garage sale and one of the world’s most popular ecological events.

Bike tour: The Burke-Gilman Trail. Riding alongside Lake Washington, the Burke-Gilman trail winds through 90 miles of urban Seattle and through 175 miles of the King County Trail system.

Number 3
Copenhagen, Denmark
With a reputation for an exquisite quality of life, Copenhagen is also “the city of bikes.” Unlike even the most ambitious North American cities, bike paths are mostly separated from the main traffic lanes and occasionally have independent signal systems. At one ecological extreme, the notorious urban commune Christiana is completely car-free. Copenhagen also boasts the world’s most successful community bicycle program. Although nearly everyone in Denmark owns a bike, tourists and others who don’t have one can pay a deposit for a bike, then drop the bike off at one of the many racks available throughout the city. Once returned, the 20-kroner deposit is refunded.

Bike tour: The Bicycle Route Copenhagen-Berlin. With a burgeoning bicycle tourism industry, Denmark is a place for the avid cyclist. And this 390-mile journey between two cycling meccas is a remarkable way to have an active holiday while combining the urban and the pastoral.

Number 2
Portland, Oregon
Portland has passed its tipping point. As greenhouse gas emissions rise throughout urban America, Portland is the only urban center to have seen a decline. With emissions below 1990 levels, traffic congestion in the Eastside Hub has dropped while the number of cyclists has tripled over the past 10 years. Statistics aside, Portland has momentum on its side. By constantly adding bike lanes, paths, boulevards (designated low-auto-traffic streets engineered to prioritize cycling), and bike parking, cyclists from all walks of life are coming out of the woodwork. In other words, cycling has emerged in Portland as a social issue that people can be enthusiastic about. It doesn’t hurt that festivals like the Chunkathalon (on tall chopper bikes) and Pedalpalooza (a month-long bike festival) promote this booming form of locomotion.

Bike tour: Feel like visiting Boring, Oregon? From the Eastbank Esplanade to the Springwater Corridor Trail, this 18-mile ride leaves town by following the Willamette River past a wildlife refuge and urban farms, and eventually leading into Boring.

Number 1
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam remains the gold standard. Built in the 17th century, Amsterdam’s narrow streets and canals don’t provide much room for cars. Instead, 40% of all traffic -- policemen, mothers with children, politicians -- pedals. Cycling is such an integral part of Amsterdam’s cultural fabric that seemingly everything is done on a bike: children sit on handle bars; milk crates or baskets are fastened any which way; bags are slung over the back tire. With an established infrastructure and a flat landscape, Amsterdam is the bike capital of the world.

Bike tour: North Amsterdam. Behind Amsterdam Central Station, there is a free ferry that crosses into North Amsterdam. From the dock, follow the eastern dike, where the Dutch countryside is full of polders (low-lying land protected by dikes), farms and windmills.
different spokes for different folks
Cycling in the city can be full of pitfalls. In North America, at any rate, cities in which drivers pay attention to cyclists are rare. Can you imagine, for example, Times Square turning into a Dutch-style, car-free zone where cyclists felt comfortable with three kids hanging on to different parts of the bike, none of them wearing a helmet? Amsterdam proves such a secure urban setting is possible, but the North American cities in this list are finding other means of integrating cycling into car-based settings.