Denmark’s capital city, including the area around the Little Mermaid, was closed to cars today for the world cycling championships.

It is also a test to see how Copenhagen will cope without car traffic and whether public transport can fill the gap.

The cycle championships began on Monday and end today (21 September 2011) with the city closed to care for its duration.

Main line and S-trains run between the central station and Osterport partly in tunnels and partly through the park.

The metro crosses the city, passing through Denmark’s busiest station at Norreport.

Walking distances are short in the mediaeval city surrounded by parks on the site of the old ramparts.

Nevertheless 40 private car drivers were stopped as they tried to use the closed streets. Police turned them away.

The city’s central station celebrates its 100th birthday this year, although the first, wooden station, was built in 1847.

The race race comes in the week after Denmark voted out a right-wing government which for 10 years had been hostile to the railways and green policies. The new government will be led by Denmark’s first woman prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Her party, the social democrats, have promised to create new jobs by investing in the railway.

Britain’s right-wing press, which has spent years campaigning for road building and is largely backing the opposition to high-speed rail in Britain, has tried to undermine her by carrying slur stories about her husband’s private life.

Tomorrow (Thursday 22 September is World Carfree Day

Information from Erland Egefors.