The Life-Sized City Blog

After visiting the Dutch Cyclists Union - Fietsersbond - last week for a business meeting we went on a bicycle ride around the city of Utrecht. What a lovely city with some interesting and enlightening infrastructure for bicycles. Like elsewhere in the Netherlands, Utrecht has a Red Light District. It's called the Zandpad (Sand path) and it is located along a picturesque canal. The women work out of long row of canal boats. Photo by Buzzthrill on Flickr . Together with Suzanne, Wim and Theo from the Fietserbond we cycled past. Suzanne explained how the bicycle path along the canal had experienced some problems with the heavy traffic in area. Cars were parking up on the bicycle lane and customers were walking along it like a sidewalk. In typical Dutch fashion, a solution was sought. Fences were put up between the road and parking and the two-way bicycle lane in order to allow unrestricted access for bicycles to ride past. Taking photos is frowned upon, but I took the photo at the to...

Not every day we get to blog about Estonian music, but here's a brilliant music video from August Hunt , featuring bicycles, bicycles and more bicycles. Wonderfully filmed.

Paul Martin in Brisbane sent me an online toy this morning and I've been playing around with it. It's a live map of bike share system use in a variety of cities. I decided to compare the levels of bike share use in 12 cities. Nine of them in Europe, as well as Melbourne, Montreal and Washington, DC. I checked the levels of usage at 08:00 AM in all the European cities (I'm including London and Dublin under that label). The morning rush hour is beginning, people are heading to work. I checked the current weather conditions, too. It's late-autumn in Europe and morning temperatures are getting chillier. So, here we go. At 08:00 in the morning local time on a Friday: PARIS - VÉLIB [8 AM / 10°C / cloudy] 753 bikes in use 4.3% in use / Normal 753 is highest so far today MILAN - BIKEMI [8 AM / 8°C / shallow fog] 110 bikes in use 9% in use / High 1142 is highest so far today LONDON - BORIS BIKES [8 AM / 10°C / light drizzle] 404 bikes in use 9% in use / High 404 is highest so fa...

The Carbon Trust's Bicyclegate continued yesterday and made it into the House of Lords. The transcript of which I include here. Generally, reading the questions and responses, it seems like an awful lot of peers with little experience of cycling pulling all manner of stereotypes and misinformation out of their robes. Fortunately, there are voices of rationality present, not least Lord Berkeley , Lord Davies of Oldham , Lord Greaves , Viscount Bridgeman and Earl Attlee . Baroness Butler-Sloss seems not to worry terribly about pedestrians getting hit by cars, instead choosing to exaggerate the myth about "pedestrians leaping to safety out of the path of bicycles". One Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Roy Kennedy, innit) went onto the BBC later to continue his rant against "lack of suitable suitable attire" on Boris Bikes . There's a bit of Rob Ford about this chap. Sorry... noble, honourble chap. [Thanks to Aedan for this link] Lord Berkeley posed a question ab...

Thanks to an unexpectedly large number of re-tweets and re-posts and not least to Carlton Reid over at BikeBiz it appears that Carbon Trust is having second thoughts about their anti-bicycle stance - which we wrote about yesterday . In this email sent round to employees this afternoon we can see a change of heart/ volte face : "Since Friday’s email from a Health & Safety perspective regarding the use of bicycles for business travel we have been contacted by a number of staff seeking clarification on our overall position on cycling. Due to a number of recent serious accidents related to staff cycling the email was cautionary as we were reviewing our approach. Our overall position on cycling has always been positive and we have always been supportive of taking the low carbon choice when travelling. To encourage staff to cycle we have provided access to cycle safety training, secure cycle storage (in place of car parking spaces), cycle maintenance, access to the Cycle To Work...

London cyclists. Who clearly shouldn't apply for jobs at Carbon Trust. There's something called Carbon Trust in the UK . They describe themselves thus on their website: The Carbon Trust is a not-for-profit company with the mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy. We provide specialist support to help business and the public sector cut carbon emissions, save energy and commercialise low carbon technologies. By stimulating low carbon action we contribute to key UK goals of lower carbon emissions, the development of low carbon businesses, increased energy security and associated jobs. Sounds great. Innovative. Progressive. N'est pas? One senses that this is an organisation that would, whether directly or indirectly, support transportation like... oh I don't know... bicycles. An organisation that places weight on science and rationality and common sense. So here's the funny thing. Well... not really Joe Pesci haha funny... just quite sad funny. T...

Interesting idea that follows the desire lines of pedestrians. This Ergo Crosswalk is the brainchild of Korean designer Jae Min Lim. His idea was shortlisted at the Seoul Design Competition . He suggests designing the stripes to follow the actual routes that people walk. Jae Min Lim on his design: “When people cross roads, they tend to take the fastest shortcut. they sometimes do it intentionally, but mostly it is an unconscious act. this kind of action violates the traffic regulations and sometimes threatens the safety of the pedestrians. The ‘ergo crosswalk’ is a design that makes people follow the law, as well as consider their habits or unconscious actions. it will encourage pedestrians to follow the lines of the cross walk and protect them from any potential danger. If regulations cannot force people to follow the law, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to change the law and fulfill the main purpose of keeping the safety and convenience of the pedestrian...” The stop lines fo...

I got handed a boiled sweet the other day, which is nice. Some lovely young ladies in goofy reflective vests were handing out these packets to cyclists in Copenhagen. The spiral pattern kind of matches the large warning stickers that are currently on the bike lanes at selected intersections. The text reads "Watch out for blind spots" meaning that cyclists are being warned to watch out for trucks turning right. Fair enough. But I've been looking around at the stickered intersections, like the one below. I can't for the life of me find any campaign material warning trucks and cars to watch out for cyclists and pedestrians. Not one sign. No electronic signals at an appropriate height to warn truck drivers of the prescence of cyclists on the right. Nada. It's the City's Traffic Council - Byens Trafikråd who are involved in the campaign, which has been running on and off for a couple of years. A couple of years! Still no corresponding warnings for the dri...

The police here in Denmark went after cyclists last week , handing out fines for infractions. It was great to see how text messages played a role in Citizen Cyclists communicating with each other, texting warnings about which streets the police were hiding out on. It reminded me of this photo, taken here in Copenhagen during the Occupation in the Second World War. There was a curfew back then and a blackout after dark. Here's an enterprising individual on Gyldenløves Street offering his assistance to his fellow cyclists. And helping gang up on the police. The signs read: "Greater traffic safety!" (that's funny...) "Avoid a fine!" "Stop Cyclist!" "Fenders painted" "Lights blacked out" "Avoid a fine!" He would paint over your white fender and black out your dynamo lights for you so that the coppers wouldn't get all in your face. As seen at the Copenhagen City Museum .

Great campaign from the City of Copenhagen earlier this year. The text reads, quite simply: "You won't believe it... You're safer on the bicycle than on the sofa!" Lack of daily exercise is harmful to your health, while physical activity keeps your body healthy. Cycling extends your life - daily excercise for minimum 30 minutes extends your life with up to five years." Not a campaign from the Traffic Dept. but rather the public health dept. On the website they state that: "With these posters Public Health Copenhagen hopes to place focus on the fact that there are very good reasons to ride a bicycle each day and we would like to highlight that Copenhageners already cycle 1.2 million km each day." Appropriate message in a city saturated with cycling. In Emerging Bicycle Cultures, it is always better to highlight the basic facts that appeal to homo sapiens, like A2Bism and quicker transport through our cities. With all that said, this is an...