The World's Youngest Urbanist

Ah, out of the mouths of babes. Last Sunday I dropped Felix off at football training and then headed to a hardware store with Lulu-Sophia in the Bullitt. She's three and half. We talked as we rolled along, as we always do.

At a red light she looked over at a motorcyclist with a passenger on the back. She commented on it.

"Daddy... look. There's a motorcycle with TWO people on it!"

Daddy replied with "Yeah! I guess they're friends or something, aren't they?"

"Yeah." She thought about this for a moment.

"We're two people on this bicycle, too!"

"Yes, we are. We're friends, too."

"Yeah."

The light changed green and we rolled onwards. What then came out of her little mouth and clever mind amazed me. She must have been looking around at the traffic after making her observations.

"When people are in cars, you can't see them, can you?"

"No, you can't", said Daddy. But you can see people on bicycles, can't you? And people walking and those people on that motorbike."

"Yeah... cars are silly, aren't they, Daddy? You can't see the people in them. That's silly..."

That made my heart sing. The world's youngest Urbanist. Right there on my bike. She's only three and a half so I haven't had chats with her about why bicycles are cool and safe and good or why too much car traffic is a bad thing for cities and safety and the public health - like I have with my 9 year old son. Although the time she has spent in cars in her three and a half years totals no more than five or six hours.

This was pure observation on her part. And a pure, logical, innocent and human conclusion.

Being able to see people around you in your city is... a good thing.

Cars are silly.

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...

City Plan Vest and Søringen - 1958-1974 - Copenhagen

A couple of twists of fate and this location in Copenhagen would have been a 12 lane motorway. When looking back over the last century of cities infatuated with Car Culture, it's not hard to see how stupid we were - or almost were. In the 1940s the so-called Finger Plan was developed for Copenhagen . By and large an interesting concept and the foundation for the expansion of Copenhagen. The Finger Plan has, however, some dark secrets. Among them are two connected projects. City Plan Vest (City Plan West) and Søringen (The Lake Ring). The City Plan Vest, in 1958, proposed that Copenhagen be equipped with a Lake Ring. The #19 motorway from the north would continue over Hans Knudsens Plads - in a tunnel to Vibenshus Runddel - and then emerging again to continue along Nørre Allé in a 12 lane motorway down Tagensvej and Fredensgade. It would turn right along The Lakes to Vesterbro, where a comprehensive interchange would be built to lead traffic to the south towards Germany and ...

The Life-Sized City Blog

Search This Blog