The City of Oslo received the Cycling Embassy of Denmark’s (CED) Leadership award at a special Danish session at the Velo-city 2017 conference in Arnhem and Nijmegen, Netherlands, on 13 June 2017.

First municipality to win

Every year, the CED  awards an organization or individual with their Leadership Award for Cycling Promotion. In all the previous years, the award has been given to an individual, but this year the CED has chosen to honor the Municipality of Oslo for their outstanding efforts in pushing the cycling agenda. Marianne Weinreich, Chairman of the CED described the municipality of Oslo in her speech as a city with ambitious goals that has made plans for a car-free city center and significant investments in cycling infrastructure in the coming years, which shows that the city of Oslo is serious about cycling.

Strong Leadership

In order to win the Cycling Embassy of Denmark’s award, you must have done something extraordinary to push the cycling agenda in your city, country or region. You must have shown vision, political courage, innovative ideas, and an ability to get things moving and people cycling. The city of Oslo has certainly done so, said Marianne Weinreich stating the official reason for Oslo winning: ‘The City of Oslo is showing strong leadership these years. Innovative projects such as the electric cargo bike grants paying for up to 25% of the cost per bike has taken cycling promotion to a new level. Furthermore, the City of Oslo has prioritized significant investments in cycling infrastructure in the coming years. Car usage will be restricted by removing parking spaces to make space for new cycle tracks and banning private cars from the city center.’

The City of Oslo was proud to receive the award. Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, Vice-Mayor for Environment and Transport in Oslo says: ‘As Norway’s capital and the largest city, it is important to be in front with the solutions of the future. We are already among the best in the world when it comes to public transport and facilitation of electric cars. This award shows that we are also in the process of taking a leading role in the field of cycling.’

Danish experts unite to promote cycling around the world

Cities all over the world are facing challenges related to the effects of decades of car-oriented city planning; congestion, air pollution, noise, obesity, CO2-emissions, lack and poor quality of space. (Re)-introducing the bicycle into the urban transportation system is one of the solutions to all these challenges and a cornerstone of creating a sustainable and livable city.

The Danes have 100 years of experience planning cycle-friendly cities, developing cycling infrastructure and cycling campaigns. And people from all over the world come to Denmark to experience the cycling culture and learn the secret behind it. So, in 2009, the Cycling Embassy of Denmark was founded to make it easy for politicians, planners, engineers, architects, journalists, NGO etc. all over the world to access this know-how and help cities around the globe make cycling an important part of their urban transportation.

The CED’s mission is to put everyday cycling on the agenda in cities all over the world. The Leadership Award for Cycling Promotion is one way of doing that. 

“We receive numerous delegations every year. Often we hear the comment that ‘well, you have always had a strong bicycle culture, so it is easy for you.’ But that is not true. Denmark also experienced a slump in the 50s and 60s where we started seeing more and more cars. It was long-term political priority and funding of cycling that changed that. So with our award, we want to acknowledge a person or organization who has shown precisely this willingness to make some tough decisions allocating space and funding for cycling,” explains Chairman of the CED, Marianne Weinreich.