How to Turn Cities Into Biketopias? Make it Harder to Drive There

Congestion pricing has had a major impact on New York City since January 5 .

The program has made some of Manhattan ’s most historically dangerous places to ride a little more welcoming.

It has also been a financial boon to the city, netting $48.6 million in its first month .

By 2011 , more than 20 percent of all trips in Denmark ’s capital city of Copenhagen were taken by bicycle.

In 2015 , Paris instituted the first phase of Le Plan vélo de Paris, which used a 150 million ( $162 million ) investment to double the amount of bike lanes in the city.

In Oslo , ridership has increased more than 80 percent since the implementation of the city's Bicycle Strategy.

Perhaps congestion pricing is the first big domino to fall in New York's next bicycling evolution.

Perhaps, in a generation or less, New York’s streets will look a lot more like those in Amsterdam , Copenhagen , Paris , or Oslo .

Perhaps once the weather warms up and people start riding bikes en masse, the city's population will realize that a bike-centric city almost exclusively has upside.