Whose Commons are Mobilities Spaces? – The Case of Copenhagen’s Cyclists

Abstract

The question of how to get more people to cycle has spread to many cities around the world. Copenhagen is often identified as having achieved considerable success in this regard, but there is a danger that the positive cycling narrative that prevails in Copenhagen may block critical discussion regarding the right to city space. Drawing from qualitative research conducted in Copenhagen as part of an “Urban Cycle Mobilities” project, this article demonstrates that people who cycle in Copenhagen constitute a community of cyclists, and asks whether such a cycling community creates the condition for cyclists and cycling to be given greater consideration in broader societal understandings of the common good. I argue that this is in fact not the case. Rather the specific project identities that are nurtured by Copenhagen’s cycling community inhibit it from advocating publicly or aggressively for a vision of the common good that gives cyclists greater and more protected access to the city’s mobility spaces.