Skip to main content

Dots and Bikes and Bondam

Traffic Dots
One of the most talked about intiatives in Copenhagen is now underway. Nørrebrogade is a main street running through a densely populated neighbourhood and it has had problems thriving for many years. Many of the side streets are lovely, cosy shopping streets but the main drag is dreary.

It is the busiest bike stretch in the nation, with 30,000 cyclists each day. 10,000 cars a day make their way down the street towards the city centre, despite the fact that only about 35% of the locals own cars.

Vice-Mayor Klaus Bondam secured a majority at City Hall for a radical project. Closing off the street to cars. It was meant to be a permanent project but he had to compromise and make it a 'test' for a period of three months. Here's a previous post about, after it was announced. This is also the stretch that features the Green Wave - cycle 20 km/h and hit green lights all the way.

Anyway, the work has begun.
Goodness
I got a text message the other day from a friend who uses the route. He said that overnight the bike lanes were doubled in width, with the new half occupying a former car lane, as seen above. He was thrilled. Often in the morning rush hour you'll wait for a red light to change with hundreds of other cyclists. This widened bike lane will improve the flow of bike traffic towards the city centre.

Traffic Dots2
The city has chosen funky street markings to alert everyone to the new system. The red dots pictured are funky and functional, letting people know that this is a bus stop zone. At the moment cars still drive down the street, until everything is set up, and I stood there watching the traffic. Cars slowed and let busses go first - always a bit of a rarity. It was petrol poetry in motion.

Traffic Test
Other markings are on the way and I'll post them as I see them show up. There are signs on the streets telling people about the new system. There will be the red dots, which denotes Busses. Then there are cool stripes that denote a FlexZone - where car lanes are reconquered in order to create space for cafés or restaurants to place outdoor tables or for shops to place displays of the goods they sell. All in order to create a dynamic shopping area and a liveable space for everyone.

Lastly there are Loading Zones on side streets for goods that are to be delivered to shops or homes. They feature the word Laes af/Laes paa - Load off/Load on, painted on the asphalt.

It's all very exciting. I'll post more as it happens.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling - Why It's Bad

One of the main focuses of this blog has always been on how Copenhagen and other cities have succeeded in increasing cycling levels by approaching the subject using mainstream marketing techniques. Tried and tested marketing that has existed since homo sapiens first started selling or trading stuff to each other. Modern bicycle advocacy, by and large, is flawed. It is firmly inspired by environmentalism which, in turn, is the greatest marketing flop in the history of humankind. Four decades of sub-cultural finger-wagging, guilt trips and preaching have given few results among the general population. When sub-cultural groups start trying to indoctrinate and convert the public, it rarely ever succeeds. For the better part of a century, people all over the planet rode bicycles because they were quick, easy, convenient and enjoyable. In hilly cities. In hot cities. In snowy cities. After the bicycle largely disappeared from the urban landscape because urban planning s...
Read more

A Walking Helmet is a Good Helmet

At long last logic prevails. A new campaign has hit the streets of Denmark, thanks to the visionaries at The Danish Road Safety Council [Sikker Trafik] and Trygfonden [an insurance company]. Intense promotion of walking helmets for pedestrians has begun. This logic has been sorely missed. These two organisations have happily promoted bike helmets but pedestrians suffer just as many head injuries, if not more. This Danish campaign poster reads: "A walking helmet is a good helmet" "Traffic safety isn't just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups." The slogan is catchy in Danish since it kind of rhymes. All in all it's a brilliant project. Let's save some lives. The new walking helmets will be available in the Danish Cyclists Union's [Dansk cyklist forbund] shop. Although, as the...
Read more

Driving Kills - Health Warnings

I think it's safe to say that we have a pressing need for marketing cycling positively if we're to encourage people to ride bicycles and begin the transformation of our cities into more liveable places. Instead of scare campaigns about cycling [a life-extending, healthy, sustainable transport form], wouldn't it be more appropriate to begin campaigns about the dangers of automobiles? Many people in car-centric countries no longer regard cars as dangerous. Maybe they realise it, but the car is such an ingrained part of the culture that the perception of danger rarely rises to the surface of peoples consciousness. Sure, there are scare campaigns for cars out there, but what if we just cut to the chase? Much like smoking. Only a couple of decades ago, cigarettes were an integral part of life, whether you smoked or not. That has changed radically. We think that we could borrow freely from the health warnings now found on cigarette packs around the world. In order to be tho...
Read more