Close Menu
    @cyclingeu
    @cyclingeu@pubeurope.com
    Denmark

    Copenhagen is Great … but it’s not Amsterdam



    Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-copenhagen-is-great-but-it-s-not-amsterdam

    Copenhagen is a great city, but it’s not Amsterdam … or any other Dutch city for that matter. This video explores the differences in street design taken by Copenhagen and citites in the Netherlands, to discover some of the finer points of what makes for great urban design.

    Sign up to Nebula and watch ad-free and sponsor-free: https://go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes

    Patreon: https://patreon.com/notjustbikes
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/notjustbikes
    Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/notjustbikes
    One-time donations: https://notjustbikes.com/donate

    NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9v57F4xz46KaDsvWfCv8yw

    —
    Historical photos of Amsterdam are from the Amsterdam Beeldbank:
    https://archief.amsterdam/beeldbank/
    https://archief.amsterdam/beeldbank/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=verkeer&page=1&reverse=0&fq%5B%5D=search_i_sk_date:%5B1950%20TO%201985%5D

    A map of all of the public trees in Amsterdam is available here:
    https://maps.amsterdam.nl/bomen/?LANG=en

    Related

    View 45 Comments

    45 Comments

    3. Rob Swystun on

      It's depressing to know that Canada won't get anywhere near even Copenhagen for bikes and pedestrians until long after I'm dead.

    4. lemsip on

      It's further north. The Netherlands is on the same latitude as southern England and the Midlands. Denmark is on the same latitude as northern England and Scotland.

    6. marinus18 on

      I think another reason a lot of European cities are changing is due to Russia. Europe has very little oil so reducing car usage also reduces Europe's dependency on Russia.

    10. Brandon M on

      Man, every time I watch one of your videos, I start out thinking, “This could be somewhat interesting” and end it thinking “Why didn’t I watch this video sooner?” You have such high quality videos that I always come out today them having learned 5x more than I ever expected

    12. Yeltsin on

      Yeah, maybe their bicycle infrastructure is better, but the Dutch people are still weird and creepy. I am staying in Copenhagen

    15. Naima Ramiréz on

      It's fine to criticise, but it feels like this video, and its comments, tend to veer into "look at how SHIT copenhagen is compared to superior netherlands!" territory.

    17. Ma88la88 on

      I have a pleasure to taste The cycler life both in cph and in utrecht. I love The solutions from Denmark – one of The reason to move out from The Netherlands. They are more intuitive and comfortable for all citizens. As a driver it is great to see cyclists – not being surprised that suddenly cyclist appears and that happens when you have The tree separation between The road and bike road that is more part if The pavement. As well the driving in Denmark is more pleasurable because people driving with a low speed and there are not woonerfs. In Netherlands i felt like someone will be killed by me or I will be killed. i always felt in risk to hit someone because The cyclists are mixed with pedestrians and cars are everywhere + trams. In Copenhagen The paths are clear for bikes, drivers and pedestrians.

      Btw. The same feeling had my friends who did The eurotrip by bikes and they live in Poland where The biking solutions are more like in netherlands

    19. Domestic Cat on

      6:17 this reminds me of cycling through the Leiden Centraal bus station. Having to ride between a lane of running buses and a lane of stopped buses right after an exit for every platform of the whole station is terrifying

    20. Simon Hylander on

      One thing i wanna mention is that when getting your drivers license in Danmark. The schools really emphasize cyclist safety. Not checking right shoulder when turning right, is almost instant failure of the test.
      Its a very big point of attention for all drivers

    22. Prideqt on

      A thing that I think you didn't quite go into but is really important here: the result of the issues you mentioned, like cars turning through the bicycle lane and a lack of a curb for bicycle lanes, means that cycling from the suburbs of Copenhagen to the city center sucks. That's why people go on the train / subway with their bicycles when heading downtown — they have no better option.

      Let's say you live in Rødovre, a suburb very close to the city center, and you want to go to a bar near Nørreport. Your options are 1. take the bicycle path by Damhussøen and follow the dedicated bicycle paths as much as possible, which meander needlessly — very inefficient, or 2. follow Roskildevej all the way downtown, intermingling with car traffic regularly and experiencing some of the issues you describe — too dangerous for comfort. So no duh, you will take option 3, head down the the train station and take the train to Nørreport station.

      As a result, long range cycling is strongly discouraged, and you can see this in practice — there's a LOT of cars in Cph because people see little point in cycling for 5 minutes just to take a train afterwards. Traffic into the city is a pretty bad, yet Roskildevej is still absolutely packed with cars — because it's significantly more convenient to drive into the city if you work there and live in the suburbs, hence that's what people do. It's a fundamental problem with Cph's urban design, and touches on a key issue you always bring up — you gotta give people the incentive to cycle around, it's not enough to just build a small bicycle lane here and there and call it a day. It's for sure a major step up from north American cities that are completely unfriendly to bicycles, but you gotta do more if you want people to keep their cars parked and use them only for very long distance travel.

    25. _Darío_ Chavez on

      Question if you have a city that is big you can make it like amsterdam?
      What I am saying is that not all cities are like the fantasy village that amsterdam is

    26. John Rambo on

      One of the main issues with your video is that you show footage of the heart of copenhagen, 3 of streets with most traffic, and then you compare it to the outskirts of Amsterdam lol.

    27. Sofus Fabritius on

      You made a mistake at 1:42. In the clip there is a traffic bump in the clip, and yet you claim that there is no traffic calming. I know a lot simmilar streets would'nt have traffic calming, but it's just a bad example when there very clearly is a traffic bump in the clip.

    28. Paul Mack on

      I like the GREEN colored (get it?!) bike lanes in Paris. Couldn’t that color be an international bike thing?
      We (well, a few of us) are talking about your channel here in Jacksonville Florida!

    29. Martin Thoustrup on

      As a Dane, I can accept this feedback, but there are a LOT of places in the greater Copenhagen area that have massive parallel transportation networks for pedestrians and cyclists. While Copenhagen could definitely be considered "achievable", and I actually think that's a great description, it's far from the best Denmark can produce. I still don't think they reach what I've seen in your Amsterdam videos though. There's still work to be done!

    31. Axel Arias on

      I feel like this video is somewhat unneccesary. I live in Copenhagen and biking has always been fairly easy. If you are a tourist or from the countryside, sure you have to get used to the hectic pace. But both Copenhagen and the Netherlands are fine for biking, so a comparison of one of these places with a country of a serious lower standard is relevant in my opinion 🙂 Of course this is entertainment, so produce whatever you want 🙂 One thing I want to mention though is the accidents of cars going from a small "side" street onto a main street, and hitting bikes on the biking lane. Also cars turning to the right without seeing you. Accidents like these happen in Copenhagen and could be a great topic for a video 🙂

    39. Melvin Mayfield on

      I otherwise enjoy your 'travel-log', as it were, but, now, on this point, instead of informing us per usual you're sounding like a 'persnickity' old-haus-frau (NO-Offense, to ol-haus-fraus!), complaining about how 'these-new-changes', are sooooo-upsetting'! PLEASE, retain what you can of your dignity, and return to that which truly SHINES about your channel; i.e., your anachronistic manner and somewhat charming description, of a specific aspect of urban life, that many of us fellow-'urbanites', in other places (Such as Myself, here in NYC), rarely-if-ever, get to SEE &/Or experience, but, are nontheless interested in, and the which of, you describe so FULLY! BTW: At 6:13+= PLEASE don't cycle in NYC, I fear we'll 'lose' you, to a heart-attack, after your 'old-maid' (NO-Offense, to 'old-maids'!), 'reportage', of how frightened you were, dealing with bicycling-situations NYers, MUST deal with: DAILY!) And also, I DON'T-Mind, if you're a WUSS, but PLEASE, don't tell on yourself so openly, I've recommended you, to DOZENS, of NYC-cyclists! 'Brass'-it-out-willya!?! All-the-Best(Just Stop Whining!: :)! ) 🙂

    40. The Wild Bunch on

      Copenhagen is still a car centered city. Just a lot of people bike. But never across the city like i did the past week. Had to stop 25 times in 12 km. The bridges are still dangerous like 20 years ago, and some of the now mostly carless streets still have really long waiting at trafficlights, which probably makes you miss your next light at a really wide city highway.
      There are a few nice cycle roads. But many don't go anywhere and there are no cycling pointers anywhere.
      The streets that have now less traffic should really be transformed into big cycling streets with trees, grass and buslanes.
      Many busstops still unload on the cycle, which makes you miss your next light again.
      People wear helmets here, because you have to sprint for some stretches to make the lights, otherwise you are standing still even more! You got to be abled to ride 30 km/h if you wanna stop less. Its just not a nice morning commute, sprinting with a bunch of other people from light to light….
      Too bad, besides a few little things the have done and build since 2001, not much changed physically. Its still an annoyance to commute across town from North to South.

    41. Leothegreygoose on

      Lots of this is just cherry picking certain roads in Copenhagen or just not giving the full picture.
      You chose the one bridge which was not ideally designed. The one road.
      There's a commune/city inside Copenhagen where there's a literal law that you have the right to be able to see a tree from every window. If you can't, the city will plant one. The problem with this video is that it's just made from the perspective of Copenhagen bad/ Netherlands good. You could surely find unflattering examples from the Netherlands too. As for you feeling unsafe, most of Copenhagen bikes lanes kind of require you to be able to ride a bike. Welcome to the city. Thinking while driving, and being aware of your surroundings is usually a demand, yes. Someone all of us Copenhageneners manage to ride our bikes around town everyday, despite your few cherrypicked examples.

    42. Amanda McCarter on

      By the time the rest of the world catches up to Copenhagen, Copenhagen will be implementing Dutch city planning and the Netherlands will have gone past what they have now.

    43. Sverre Jansen on

      i live in Almere ( next to Amsterdam ) and i've bin several Times in københavn ( copenhagen ) and Both cities are beutifal and bothe have there own up and down sides so i cant chose a ( better ) city

    45. blake on

      I came to Copenhagen expecting an urban design utopia. I’ve been blown away by the number of cars, noise, chaos. I think my word to describe it is ‘functional’ whereas I was expecting perfection.

    Leave A Reply