The One Minute Idling Rule

These posters are up all over the city of Frederiksberg at the moment, where I live.

They read, quite simply: "Idling your motor - Maximum 1 minute - When you idle your motor your car emits chemicals dangerous to health. Show consideration and turn off your motor."

Hmm. Your car does it. Like it's alive and has a mind of it's own. Why, oh why, can it not just state that YOU emits dangerous chemcials when YOU idle your car? It's the motorist who is doing it, controlling the situation. Let's slap that responsibility on that motorist with a simple rewording, for god's sake.

With THAT said, there have been rules in place for many years in Danish cities regarding how long you can idle your motor. They don't apply to traffic jams, but just when you're sitting there... um... idle.

The regulations in Frederiksberg for this one minute limit have been in place since 1989, based on recommendations from the Environment Ministry back in 1982.

Pollution comes from various sources. Power stations, wood burning stoves and traffic among them. Frederiksberg states that 90% of the pollution in this city comes from cars.

If this hadn't been the regulation since the late 80s, I doubt that it would be put into place today, given how car-centric things have become. But it's nice that it's there.

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...

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling - Why It's Bad

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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...

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