The Life-Sized City Blog

The Danish government backed out of their election promise to create congestion charges around Copenhagen last week. It boggles the mind. The car centric mood in this country is stronger than any period since the 1960s, it seems. To highlight this point, the Danish version of MetroXpress published this article yesterday , about a new study from an analysis institute - CASA , that shows that Danish motorists have been subsidized for many years. I've translated it here: Petrol prices that continue to rise, high environmental taxes and the risk of a congestion ring. Motorists have felt as though they are a hunted flock that politicians would rather see taking public transport. The fact of the matter is that the State has spoiled motorists rotten over the past 20 years. That's the conclusion in a new report that analysis institute CASA published yesterday. It shows that motorists who drove 100 km from, for example Helsinge or Herfølge to work in Copenhagen pay 17 kroner ...

It's be three and half years since I first blogged this video, made by students at the Dutch Film and TV Academy. I'm surprised it only has 5424 views on YouTube. It deserves so much more. The dialogue goes like this: Motorist is shown an ink blot. Doctor: What do you see? Motorist: Car. Doctor: (Voiceover): The first phase is denial. Motorist: Car. Motorist watches bicycle films. Doctor: (Voiceover) You have to present the addict with the cure for the problem. Motorist gets onto stationary bicycle. Doctor: (Voiceover) Then they have to take their own initiative. Motorist outside on bicycle. Doctor: (Voiceover) When they can do it on their own, we'll let them go. Car addiction (or slavery) is a underestimated problem. We have to help these people. Doctor's last line: Yeah, somebody has to do something about traffic jams. Then there's this one. Italian asks how the guy got there today and replies, "Bicycle". Italian men laugh....

The area surrounding the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, is a labyrinth of construction as the City is renovating the on-street facilities and making it a nicer place. The result is that there is less space available so the City of Copenhagen has these signs up on Købmagergade, near the station. We are always thrilled to Copenhagenize Consulting's "Hej Cyklist" behavourial communication template in use. This campaign was developed for the City by the consultancy Atkins Danmark . It reads: Hej Cyclist! Can't you find your bicycle? It's now parked in Rosenborggade. In order to create space for everyone, we've drawn a bicycle parking zone here on Købmagergade. Bicycles parked outside the zone may be moved to the bicycle parking zone in Rosenborggade. They include a little map so you can find your bicycle. How lovely. Around the corner, here are the bicycles that have been moved. A cool design of the photo that combines the bicycles on th...

As we highlighted last week , the Danish police announced they would be going after bicycle users this week and sure enough, they were at it. Hiding behind a tree along The Lakes, as above. This officer was largely stopping bicycle users who were scooting over the sidewalk, as illustrated below, in order to turn right while avoiding the hundred or so bicycle users waiting at the red light. Yes, hundreds of the world's best behaved cyclists waiting for red lights and once in a while a citizen on a bicycle rolls across the sidewalk (red arrows), only to be stopped by this police officer. I watched for a while and the policeman spent more time leaning against a tree than writing tickets. And this was rush hour. He did get to unfreeze the ink in his pen a few times though. None of the bicycle users who cut the corner did so at any great speed and none of them bothered any pedestrians on their A to B journey. Anette Jerup Jørgensen is a researcher at Danish Cyclists Federation ...

It's something we read regularly in the Danish press. The police had out traffic fines in order to make their statistics look good and to reach certain goals set for each police district. The article, above, is from November, 2011, but there are articles about it every year. The photo in the article is police handing out fines to bicycle users in Copenhagen. Cyclists are often the easiest target. You park your police car or police bicycle ( illegally ) on a busy street and starting writing fines. It is often near the end of the year that police - if it looks like they're lagging behind in reaching the goal - will hit the streets to hand out of flurry of fines. The article highlights the irony that in many police districts they become so focused on traffic fines that they use less time on crime. Jørgen Jensen, a policeman from the western suburbs, is quoted in the article as saying, "Based on the bare figures, we go after certain areas in order to reach the targets...

The seeds of bicycle culture in Denmark were first sown 120 years ago. We found a fascinating article about some of the historical aspects of Danish bicycle infrastructure history and thought it relevant to include it here. The first bike lane in Denmark was constructed on Esplanaden in 1892 and in 1896, Copenhageners were allowed to cycle on the side of equestrian paths. Marking out bike lanes in Copenhagen, 1915. Bike lanes along roads weren't, however, constructed back then, despite the rising number of cars on the streets and the rise of the bicycle as transport. There was a battle for space in the cities. Between bicycle users, trams and horses and carriages. It was in 1923 that bicycle users and pedestrians were first allowed to use the one metre wide shoulder on country roads. Nevertheless, many bicycle users chose to avoid the shoulder because of the refuse that collected there, choosing instead to ride farther towards the middle of the road where the coast was cl...

We've written before about how cargo bike culture starts early in Copenhagen . Here are a couple more examples from last week. Above, heading home from kindergarten, a Copenhagen kid gets to try and ride the family's Christiania bike along the cycle tracks. And this was spotted on my way home from picking up Lulu-Sophia from kindergarten. A mum sitting on the back rack and letting her kid get the feeling of the ride from the saddle of this Nihola . Here's a glimpse into the secret life of cargo bike compartments. This one - one of many - was parked outside the kindergarten. All the essentials for a kid's life. Including a magic wand. I use the Velorbis to pick up Lulu-Sophia at the moment. Well, Lulu and friends, of course. The classic hook on the back racks of Danish bikes comes in handy when transporting a lunchbox. Although apples are doable as well - among many other things. Here's more on these hooks on our bikes .

This winter has, so far, been rather uneventful. No arctic deep freeze with snowstorm after snowstorm rolling in like the past two winters and many before that . It's been grey and dull and quite boring, with only The Lakes being frozen over to provide a sense of winter and the opportunity to skate. Older people - including my dad - will wax lyrical about the three legendary winters back in 1939/40, 40/41 and 41/42. It was in 1941 that the municipality of Frederiksberg - where Copenhagenize Consulting is also based - needed some new ideas about clearing the obscene amounts of snow. Horse-drawn ploughs were in use all over the nation, as well as teams of men with shovels, due to the petrol shortage during those winters. Frode Nielsen, an engineer at the city's transport department, invented the bicycle snowplough picture above. It was made from two short john delivery bikes attached together with rods. The plough was made of beech, with a 3 mm steel edge, as well as sma...

First reference to "jaywalking" - Kansas City Star, 30 April 1911. I've posted about the brilliant book " Fighting Traffic - The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City" by Peter D. Norton before but I just can't get enough of it. Previous posts are The Anti-Automobile Age and what we can learn from it and Fighting Traffic . The Canadian writer, Chris Turner, wrote today about how there are no jaywalkers on sustainable streets over at Mother Earth Network . Here's some back-up for that brilliant article. The very term "Motor Age" was invented by the automobile industry as a promotional term aimed at turning public opinion away from the massive societal protest at the appearance of cars on city streets. The term "... carried a built-in justification for overturning established custom. It combined rhetorical closure and problem redefinition, just as similar phrases have been used in more recent years to justify workplace smokin...