Responding to yesterday's post on Ikea shuttle buses causing a stir in Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, Streetsblog commenter Lee Watkins reminds us of the company's Danish bike-share program. As previously noted here, Copenhagenize has the scoop:

IKEA of Denmark is now starting a new concept at their Danish stores. They did a bit of market research and found that roughly 20% of their customers rode their bikes to the stores - even though most of them are located outside the cities in large commerical centres - some call them Big Box Districts - which are located outside the city centre.

IKEA has invested in Velorbis bikes, at a couple of their stores, that will pull trailers so that customers can ride home with the new purchases.

According to Copenhagenize, two Ikea stores outside the city -- one of them located 12 miles away -- feature bikes and trailers for rent. The Velorbis web site says the bikes are offered for use at no cost (Treehugger puts the deposit at $100 US). As remote as many New Yorkers may consider Red Hook to be, it isn't exactly a suburb, yet Ikea chose to make room for 1,400+ cars there while forgoing bike accommodations altogether. What gives?

If it works in Denmark, Ikea will reportedly be exporting its bike rental program to other countries. Let's hope Brooklyn is considered urban enough for the company to give it a try here in the States. (Confidential to Ikea: these folks would probably be happy to hear from you.)

Photo: Velorbis

Seeking an answer to the question "Why are Danes happier than everyone else?," ABC News speculates that trust and bicycles make all the difference:

In Denmark, you can see trust in action all around you. Vegetable stands run on the honor system, mothers leave babies unattended in strollers outside cafés, and most bicycles are left unlocked. And perhaps the bicycle is the best symbol of Danish happiness. Danes can all afford cars, but they choose bikes --  simple, economical, nonpolluting machines that show no status and help keep people fit.

Since they give bikes their due, ABC gets a pass for neglecting the congestion pricing theory of happiness.

Photo: bananaterror/Flickr

An op/ed by Eduardo Porter in today's New York Times makes a passing suggestion that by reducing the number of people who do solo car commutes, congestion pricing would make New Yorkers happier.

I can say this for sure: If it also reduces the number of honking, revving, careening and exhaust-spewing sociopaths clogging New York City streets in their gigundo sedans and sports utes it'll definitely make me happier. I don't know if it's just me or if for some reason there has been a sudden increase in idiotic driving and needless horn-blasting but lately I find myself wanting to take a sledgehammer to lots of New York City drivers' windshields. I suppose this sinks me pretty far down in the happiness rankings. Here's an excerpt:

The framers of the Declaration of Independence evidently believed that happiness could be achieved, putting its pursuit up there alongside the unalienable rights to life and liberty. Though governments since then have seen life and liberty as deserving of vigorous protection, for all the public policies aimed at increasing economic growth, people have been left to sort out their happiness.

This is an unfortunate omission. Despite all the wealth we have accumulated — increased life expectancy, central heating, plasma TVs and venti-white-chocolate-mocha Frappuccinos — true happiness has lagged our prosperity...

Despite happiness’ apparently Sisyphean nature, there may be ways to increase satisfaction over the long term. While the extra happiness derived from a raise or a winning lottery ticket might be fleeting, studies have found that the happiness people derive from free time or social interaction is less susceptible to comparisons with other people around them. Non-monetary rewards — like more vacations, or more time with friends or family — are likely to produce more lasting changes in satisfaction.

This swings the door wide open for government intervention. On a small scale, congestion taxes to encourage people to carpool would reduce the distress of the solo morning commute, which apparently drives people nuts.

Perhaps no coincidence, Denmark -- the land of Jan Gehl, communal, car-free public spaces and high-heeled cyclists -- consistently lands the #1 spot in studies of the world's happiest nation. Here is a recent study in the British Medical Journal.

Map of World Happiness: University of Leicester School of Psychology.

Alan Durning has a lengthy essay discussing the infrastructure and culture that makes a city "bike friendly" in the environmental news blog, Gristmill:

Good bicycling infrastructure is something few on this continent have seen. It doesn't mean a "bike route" sign and a white stripe along the arterial. It doesn't mean a meandering trail shared with joggers, strollers, and skaters.

Bike friendly means a complete, continuous, interconnected network of named bicycle roads or "tracks," each marked and lit, each governed by traffic signs and signals of its own. It means a parallel network interlaced with the other urban grids: the transit grid on road or rail; the street grid for cars, trucks, and taxis; and the sidewalk grid for pedestrians. It means separation from those grids: to be useful for everyone from eight year olds to eighty year olds, bikeways on large roads must be physically curbed, fenced, or graded away from both traffic and walkers. (On smaller, neighborhood streets, where bikes and cars do mingle, bike friendly means calming traffic with speed humps, circles, and curb bubbles.)

Picture a street more than half of which is reserved for people on foot, bikes, buses, or rail; on which traffic signals and signs, street design, and landscaping all conspire to treat bicycles as the equals of automobiles. This is what bike friendly -- what Bicycle Respect -- looks like.

Such "complete streets" are common in Denmark, the Netherlands, and other northern European countries.

What does bike friendly look like? It looks like a 60-year old and her granddaughter on two wheelers, getting the green light at each intersection they approach, while drivers brake to stay out of their way.