City recognised for its efforts to promote sustainable transport in spite of the economic downturn

American environmental website treehugger.com has voted Copenhagen the world’s best city for cyclists, saying that the city constantly innovates to keep ahead of the competition.

The website, which is owned by Discovery Communications, is viewed as an authoritative source of information on sustainable living. In its yearly awards, Copenhagen was voted ‘Best green city to visit’ in the Travel and Nature section, and ‘Best City for Cyclists’ in the Cars and Transportation category.

In response to the award, Copenhagen’s technical and environmental mayor Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard said it made him proud.

‘We are building new bike lanes, bike bridges and commuter routes and continue to invest in improving conditions for cyclists despite the economic crisis. We need to keep doing this if we are to achieve our target of becoming the world’s first CO2 neutral city by 2025, therefore I’m very pleased that our efforts are being recognised at the international level,’ he told Politiken newspaper.

At present, according to tourism website Wonderful Copenhagen, 36 percent of Copenhageners cycle to work with the target to make that figure 50 percent by 2015.