Germany Announced The Adoption Of The National Bicycle Plan3.0

On April 21, 2021, the German Federal Cabinet announced the approval of the "National Bicycle Plan 3.0" proposed by Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer.

The goal of the plan is to "provide more, better and safer bicycle access programs in urban and rural areas. The plan contains action recommendations and strategies to promote cycling in rural and urban areas by 2030."

Scheuer said: "Through the new national bicycle plan, we will make Germany a bicycle country." According to the plan, by the end of the 2020s, Germany will establish more bicycle rapid transit lines, more consideration of cargo bicycles, and Bicycle parking spaces are expanded. In addition, the driving routes of bicycles and cars should be planned separately as much as possible.

So far, when planning a new road, people always consider it at the end to see if there is enough space for bicycle lanes. But in the future, during road planning, bicycle lanes must be automatically included in the scope of consideration, planning, and construction. Scheuer said that people hope to resolve and avoid road traffic conflicts in the future.

Almost everyone in Germany owns a bicycle: by 2020, there will be approximately 79 million bicycles, of which more than 7 million are electric assisted bicycles. In 2017, there were 28 million bicycle trips and 112 million kilometers. It takes an average of 3.7 kilometers to travel on a classic bicycle and 6.1 kilometers on an electric bicycle. Overall, the proportion of people using bicycles on the road is 11%. In the recent National Bicycle Plan (NRVP 2020), the federal government's goal is to reach a bicycle riding rate of about 15%, but this goal is clearly not achieved. In NRVP 3.0, it does not specify any target cycle traffic sharing. To compare: In the Netherlands, the proportion of bicycles is 27%, almost three times that of Germany. The Netherlands is known as the country with the most complete cycling infrastructure in the world.