Truly great cities are friendly to bike riders

WHERE Harry Singleton claims to have travelled to ‘many great cities,’ and cites Rome, Barcelona, Madrid,

and Paris (‘Our city is still one of the greatest in the world, M.E.N., April

13), I’ve only visited a handful – in search of cycling heaven.

Paris – the venue for the finish of the Tour de France since 1903 – was the first ‘great city’ I visited: to watch the TdF prologue/start. Today, it’s so cycling friendly that, cyclists no longer have to stop at every red traffic light.

Then Palma (Majorca), Ghent and Munich, where cyclists, cars and pedestrians also live in harmony.

Cities on my ‘bucket list’ are Copenhagen, often named as the happiest capital city in the world, and recently voted the ‘best cycling city on earth’ by US sustainability experts Treehugger; Amsterdam, ‘the cycling capital of the world’; and Utrecht, which has the world’s largest bike shed, housing some 12,500 bicycles.

With Manchester breaching air pollution limits, and Manchester Airport growing in a spectacular fashion, it could surely learn something from The Netherlands – it’s said their children are the happiest in the world.

In looking for great cities, the recent World Happiness Report found happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress, with the top five countries being Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland.

Manchester might have happy football fans, but how happy are its daily commuters and workers? Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe