More Bicycle Friendly Motorways

I was on a photo shoot for the Danish Cancer Society a couple of weeks ago. Cycling along the old defences of Copenhagen, taking pictures of recreational bicycle infrastructure. The Cancer Society is focusing a lot on cycling and exercise as preventative measures against cancer in this sedentary world.

The route took me over a motorway section that I'd only ever driven over in a car. Sjællands Bridge, which is the main motorway if you're heading to Sweden from Denmark. Needless to say there is a wide cycle track over the bridge. There are fewer commuters on this route during the week, compared to parallel cycle tracks along other motorways leading into the city, but the weather was nice - 35 degrees - and there were many people going for bike rides.

On either side of the bridge the bike route runs parallel but more separated by trees - it's a motorway for god's sake, who wants to ride next to it? - but above is a lovely detail. There is an overpass leading bicycles and pedestrians over the motorway. It is wonderfully designed. A long, sweeping arc that makes it an easy climb for all the different kinds of people on bicycles who use it, including children.

Brilliant, people-friendly design detail. They could have just cut it short and made it a sharper, steeper turn up to the overpass. But they didn't.

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...

The New Question for 21st Century Cities

It's all so simple if we want it to be. For almost a century we have been asking the same question in our cities. "How many cars can we move down a street?" It's time to change the question. If you ask "How many PEOPLE can we move down a street?", the answer becomes much more modern and visionary. And simple. Oh, and cheaper. Let alone the fact that the model at the top can move 10 times more people down a street than the model at the bottom. When I travel with my Bicycle Urbanism by Design keynote , I often step on the toes of traffic engineers all around the world. Not all of them, however. I am always approached by engineers who are grateful that someone is questioning the unchanged nature of traffic engineering and the unmerited emphasis placed on it. I find it brilliant that individual traffic engineers in six different nations have all said the same thing to me: "We're problem solvers. But we're only ever asked to solve the sam...

Desire Line Analysis in Copenhagen's City Centre

Continuing in our series of Desire Line Analyses, we decided to cast our critical and curious eyes on yet another Copenhagen intersection, this time where Bremerholm meets Holmens Kanal. We decided to be more specific and focus on one part of the intersection - a location that we know well and one with a specific congestion problem in rush hour. We filmed for one hour from 08:15-09:15. Behaviour vs Design With the massive numbers of bicycle users in the mornings in Copenhagen, bottlenecks occur at a number of locations, particularly where many bicycle users need to turn left. This is something that all of us at the company experience each morning so we decided to study it. It was a November morning and it was party-cloudly, dry and 6 degrees C. The focus was to determine how bicycle users react to the sub-standard design of this location. How they react to having to battle with motorised traffic - something that is unusual in the city. Yep, even in Copenhagen, The Arroganc...

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