Two years after snatching the world’s most bicycle-friendly city title from Amsterdam, Copenhagen has managed to maintain its iron grip on the title.
According to the freshly-revealed 2017 Copenhagenize Index, Copenhagen is still the most bicycle-friendly city in the world to cycle, followed by Utrecht in the Netherlands, which moved past Dutch rival Amsterdam into second place this year.
“First and foremost, we are impressed by the investment and the innovation. The city has invested over €134 million over the past ten years into bicycle infrastructure and facilities,” wrote Copenhagenize.
“There are a whopping 16 new bridges for bicycles (and pedestrians) built or under construction. Eight of those have opened since the 2015 index, and four more are financed or under construction. Seriously. These are BRIDGES. For BICYCLES. Copenhagen is slapping them up like they are flower pots. Filling in all the missing mobility links for bicycle transport.”
READ MORE: Copenhagen claims title as world’s most bicycle-friendly city
Oslo and Helsinki in
But improvement could be made and Copenhagenize suggests that some issues include the congestion of bicycle paths and the wave of cars flooding into the city from the suburbs.
Across the Øresund Bridge in Malmö there were also grounds for celebration. The Swedish city jumped up one spot to fifth, just behind Strasbourg in fourth on the 20-city biennial index.
Bordeaux, Antwerp, Ljubljana, Tokyo and Berlin completed the top ten, while other notables included Barcelona (11), Paris (13), Helsinki (18) and Oslo (19).
Compared to the previous index in 2015, new cities include Tokyo, Munich, Helsinki and Oslo. Meanwhile, Minneapolis, Dublin, Eindhoven and Buenos Aires all dropped out of the index this year.
