In early June, Tracey and I spent a couple of nights in Vienna, Austria. The last time I was there was way back in 2015, and even then it certainly had lots of good features getting plenty of people out cycling.
This time around, things hadn’t changed much in that regard; there were still heaps of people biking around the city. From 7% modal share last time, the city now has 11% of people biking and has even made the Copenhagenize Index Top 20. Even Tracey was surprised to see so many people riding in what she didn’t really regard as a cycling city.
Several key aspects have helped to keep the momentum going in Vienna. Top of the list (and common to several places in Europe) are low-speed zones – typically 30km/h but it’s not unusual to also see 20km/h shared zones as well.
There were plenty of separated or off-road cycleways in places, but you can still come across the occasional on-road cycle lanes as well.
Similarly, you didn’t have to look far to find contra-flow cycleways against central city one-way streets – another valuable advantage for people biking.
Last time I remember being amused by the creative pedestrian crosswalk signals in Vienna. This time, they’ve got even more creative with their renditions of dual cycle/pedestrian signals featuring people waiting or moving…
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As mentioned, there were a lot of people spotted biking, and these numbers were also evident in the ever-full bike parking scattered around the city.
Here’s a few other pics taken around Vienna:
I certainly couldn’t complain about the architecture in Vienna either, and likewise it was great to see that cycling was still a strong feature there as well.
What do you like most about cycling aspects of Vienna?