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No ridiculous car trips from Martin Lang on Vimeo.


The City of Malmö is located in the south of Sweden, just across the bridge from Copenhagen. It's Sweden's third-largest city. 

The City's bicycle office and transport department are also quite brilliant at promoting cycling. In fact, I asked one of the communications people at the City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office a while back who theywere positively influenced by and he replied, "Malmö" without hestitation. Followed by the Dutch Fietsersbond. Which speaks volumes.

They have had a successful campaign running for four years now called "No Ridiculous Car Trips". They discovered a few years back that 50% of all trips under 5 km were by car in the city and they decided to do something about it.

The campaign has been a massive success. In the film, above, you can hear all about how and why the campaign started. I like how they turn the tables in their marketing. Directing confronting that very simple fact that using cars for short trips in their city was - ridiculous. 

They invited people to write down a description of their short car trip in the hopes of winning the Most Ridiculous Car Trip title - and a new bicycle of course.

The film is also a fine infomercial about the city and their visions of the future, including their goals for increasing bicycle traffic. In 1995, the modal share for bicycles was 20%. Today it is 30%. They increased their bicycle traffic by 1-2% each year. Brilliant. The reason for the increase is not just campaigns but also a sensible investment in separated bicycle infrastructure. The city now has around 420 km of bicycle infrastructure.

Textbook examples of how to promote cycling positively. Poster children for liveable cities. Wonderful.