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Berlin is a hugely under-appreciated cycling city. Often overshadowed by the accomplishments of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, over the past two decades Berlin has quietly experienced what is perhaps the most striking cycling renaissance in the world. On any given day, more trips are now made by bicycle in Berlin than any other European city.

Berlin does not fit the mold of a typical bicycling paradise. The metropolis of 3.5 million people is as populous and expansive as Los Angeles. In contrast to Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Berlin boasts abundant road supply, minimal traffic congestion, and an extensive Metro system. Summers are hot and humid and winters are long and cold. In the capital of the nation that produced Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW, and autobahns, one would not expect bicycling to flourish; yet, since German reunification in 1990, Berlin has undergone a cycling revolution.

According to Berlin’s 2010 Mobility Report, Berliners made approximately 1.4 million trips by bicycle every day in 2008, amounting to 13 percent of all trips citywide (and 14 percent of commute trips). This figure has more than doubled since 1990, yet it is likely already outdated, given rising gas prices ($8/gallon in Berlin) and an aggressive city initiative to raise cycling mode share to 15 percent by 2015.

While mode share figures are an imperfect measure of cycling rates, they allow for rough comparisons between cities. In Amsterdam and Copenhagen, about 35 percent of all trips are made by bicycle. In Portland, cycling captures 6-8 percent of commute trips, the largest total of any major American city. For a city the scale of Berlin, 13 percent mode-share is substantial — especially considering 30 percent of trips are already made by walking and 26 percent by public transportation.

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Since we’re talking about urban bike-sharing today, it’s worth taking a quick look at Germany’s Call-a-Bike program. The remarkable thing about this system is that you don’t even need to leave the bicycles in a set parking spot. Using your cell phone you call the phone number on the side of the bike, a magic ray beam shoots out of the sky an unlocks the bicycle’s rear wheel (I may not have the technological details correct there), and when you’re done riding you call the number to close your transaction and leave the bike standing at any street corner in the city. It costs 6 cents per minute. Call-a-Bike is run by the Die Bahn, the German national transportation agency.

Photos: Aaron Naparstek, Berlin, March 2004

Committed to making cycling a viable form of transportation, the Berlin Senate measures the success of that city's bicycle network by the prevalence of cyclists in the overall traffic mix -- rather than the way New York's DOT does, by the miles of bike lanes built. Via TreeHugger:

Two years ago, the Berlin Senate decided that bikes should make up 15% of city traffic by the year 2010. Results released from the newest traffic study of the Berlin Development Administration show that the goal could be reached early: the number of bicyclists has more than doubled in the last decade to 400,000 riders daily, accounting for 12% of total traffic.

A clever investment strategy in biking infrastructure is likely the primary facilitator of the migration to human powered vehicles. The program targeted improvement of connections between train stations and bike paths, and over 3000 bicycle parking places have been built on 40 stations. The current situation in Berlin is the envy of many a city: Berliners have access to 620 Km of bike paths, 80 Km of bike lanes in the streets, 70 Km of bus lanes which are also open to bicyclists, 100 Km of combined pedestrian/bike paths and 50 Km of marked bike lanes on the sidewalks. The Berlin Senate Bicycle Traffic Strategy foresees pulling all these routes together into a network with primary routes running from the city center out to the suburbs and two traffic rings by 2016. Park-and-ride facilities will be added at 20 additional U-bahn stations in the coming year.

Photo: tilde~/Flickr