Last week, I spent several days commuting around Copenhagen, Denmark, on a bicycle. It is an activity I would love to do back home in Rogers, Arkansas. As a traffic engineer, I enjoy seeing new countries and the way different communities interact while they move.

After receiving some basic instructions of riding in bicycle congestion, 10 of us took off across Copenhagen to the internal city of Frederiksberg to visit with the equivalent of their Public Works Department. We visited their maintenance yard where I completely dorked out and took lots of pictures of things like granite curbs and bike lane sweepers. The staff was gracious and attempted to answer our flurry of questions. Many of the technical terms do not translate well from Danish, and we resorted to a variety of hand gestures along the way.

I learned that we share many of the struggles of implementation that they do. There was a long conversation of the politics of accommodating citizens and bosses. They do have less restrictive policies that help, such as the ability to construct streets with one vehicle lane.

I left Frederiksberg excited about what we are doing in Rogers and Northwest Arkansas. We are obviously behind Copenhagen when it comes to on-street bicycle usage, but we are taking the appropriate steps to gradually implement better alternatives for moving around our cities. I do understand the need to accommodate cars; I work on it every day. But I also want to plan and build streets that democratize use. Relatively inexpensive things can and are being done to safely accommodate the rising use of bicycles, and we are on a good path to expand in the future.