Picture from visitstockholm.com. Photographer Henrik Trygg

Stockholm has now joined Cities for Cyclists, the ECF’s network for the promotion of urban cycling. The Swedish Capital joins its three Scandinavian predecessors – Helsinki, Copenhagen and Frederiksberg – in this circle of bike friendly municipalities.

Cycling in Stockholm is already very popular. Local authorities invest yearly lots of Swedish kronor in winter streets maintenance: the long and snowy winters aren’t now seen by residents as an insurmountable obstacle anymore. Regular snow removal and sand sweeping operations provide the Swedes with a year-round cycle friendly capital.

To date, Stockholm encompasses approximately 760 km of cycle paths. Over the last decade, the number of cyclists has increased by 76 %. Cycle modal share is now 9 %.

Stockholm City Council has locked until 2018 the equivalent of € 115m for new cycling infrastructure, and has pretty interesting benchmarks for the development of cycle mobility: bike modal share to hit at least 12% by 2018, and at least 18% by 2030. Another intention is to double the number of bicycles surveyed in some given measuring positions by 2030, with the intermediate goal of +50% to be reached by 2018.

Remarkable figures come from the bike sharing scheme: Stockholm introduced its own in 2006, and it revealed to be a success, with nearly 900,000 bike withdrawals a year.

With this encouraging precedents and so much know-how to share, there’s little doubt that the Cities for Cyclists members will benefit from Stockholm’s will to share its cycle knowledge.

For more information on the Cities for Cyclists network, please visit ecf.com/projects/cities-for-cyclists.

 About the Author