The Life-Sized City Blog

Nice and simple. A welcome sight in the morning in Copenhagen. After a snowfall - most often during - the sidewalks and cycle tracks are cleared of snow, allowing for trouble-free mobility. Read more about winter maintenance: - The Snow Slinger - eating snow drifts for breakfast - Copenhagen runs out of salt - priortizes only cycle tracks . - Protecting Trees with Salt Guards - and keeping cycle tracks clear - The Ultimate Bike Lane Snow Clearance Blogpost

I just recieved a quite brilliant text message from Danish State Railways. "Congratulations with your birthday tomorrow! You can travel free in all zones on the S-train (the trains serving Greater Copenhagen) on your birthday. Just show your ID, your DSB loyalty card and this text message on the train." This is brilliant customer care. Free trains on your birthday! I'm stunned and pleased. More from DSB: This is how DSB markets their bicycle-friendliness in a mainstream bicycle culture This is back when they made it free to take your bicycle on the trains. This is their idea of having bicycle pumps on their trains.

A Short History of Traffic "Engineering". Get this design as a poster in the online shop .

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Cyclists’ protests can be a good thing arising out of a bad thing. Confused? by Pedro Madruga The Good The number of actions protesting for more cyclist and pedestrian rights is becoming more common, large-scaled and with increased outcomes.  Most of us are aware of the protests in Denmark and Netherlands during the 70’s, aiming mostly for increased safety. If you're not aware of that then here’s a whole article waiting for you here . Back then, a message was sent to politicians: the ink was made of cyclists and pedestrians and the paper was the city hall square – as you can see in the below picture (Copenhagen). It figuratively said: “enough”. And it worked. Without violence, just pure human kinetics. Throughout history there were several protests were cyclists and pedestrians claimed for better rights. Just last year, a massive protest gathered 10 thousand cyclists in the UK and 50 thousand in Italy .  And the list goes on, whet...

"The Danish Congestion Commission is regarded, apparently, as a "good solution" as a plaster on the wound for the dropped congestion charge ring that would have reduced automobile traffic by 30%. A congestion ring that "nobody" allegedly wanted - except of course for a majority of Copenhageners who live with the pollution in a city that looks more and more like a parking lot with randomly scattered homes. We would have preferred that it looked more like a park with densely-populated neighbourhoods." Thus writes the newly-formed, Danish bicycle advocacy association Cykelrepublikken - The Bicycle Republic - on their website in a sharp criticism of the Congestion Commission. We've critised the Commission previously here on Copenhagenize but now their work is done and the documents handed in. Cue the anti-climax. The reports are disappointing and not a little shocking in their complete uselessness. Here is the translation of Cykelrepublikken's a...

« We are nourishing a monster of great potential destructiveness.» Colin Buchanan, 1960. Quote referring to the car-oriented planning in a report for the Minister for Transport, UK. It was a privilege to read, over the last few days, a thesis written by Joe Goddard - a friend of Mikael's. The thesis’ full title is “Cycle Paths and City Traffic 1945-1995” and it was a work submitted to the University of Bristol, in order to obtain the Master of Arts degree in the Faculty of Historical Studies. Amazingly, it was written back in 1995. Back then there were hardly any papers about bicycle infrastructure or bicycles at all so Mr Goddard was quite ahead of the modern curve. Dr Joe Goddard is now Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Copenhagen. His most recent book is also fascinating: Being American on the Edge - Penurbia and the Metropolitan Mi...

Great little video from Italy, made by Ivan Conte. Look what kind of inhuman cities we have created with our primitive, vehicle-based traffic engineering over the past century or so. Pedestrians are at the mercy of the motor vehicles, sure, but at the root at the mercy of traffic engineers who fail to plan for pedestrians and cyclists. Chaos ensues. Pollution runs riot. Cities are dead or dying ... unless we choose to think differently .

Our intrepid correspondant Lars Barfred spotted this bicycle tube dispenser outside Loke Cykler (a bike shop) in Griffenfeldsgade, in the Nørrebro neighbourhood. 50 kroner ($8.00) for a tube. There's no school like the old school. Random fact: Loke, or Loki , is a Norse god. Often regarded as a bit of a trickster, he also helps the other gods in important matters. Which is the case, it would seem, with this bicycle tube dispenser.

Out of the many articles on the subject of rationality and logic here on the blog, you may remember our proposal for health warnings on automobiles from a while back. Another logical idea that we have pitched around is forcing motorists to add reflective material to their cars in order for cyclists and pedestrians to see them better. It usually garners a chuckle and a "yeah, why don't we?!" But why don't we? It's not such a crazy idea. According to a study from Monash University Accident Research Centre in Australia (the same people who developed protective headwear for... motorists - do you have yours yet?) black cars are more likely to be involved in crashes, whilst white, gold and yellow cars are least likely to suffer the same fate. It was a 20 year study using data from more than a whopping 850,000 accidents. That's what we like. Data to back up an idea. Black cars are 47% more likely to be involved in crashes. Black cars were the bad guys, b...

Lulu-Sophia, who I called the World's Youngest Urbanist last year and who features in my recent TED x talk from Zurich constantly fires off simple and logical observations from the urban theatre. Yesterday we were out shopping on our cargo bike and we spotted these two red peppers that had presumably fallen off a bicycle. We chatted about them and then off we went. Lulu-Sophia was quiet for a moment and then said: "Daddy, I bet they'll get run over and squished." "I'm sure they will." "I think it'll be a car that runs them over." "Why?" "Because cars can't see them. Cyclists can see them but the people in cars can't." Ah, yes. Indeed. The interaction with the urban landscape is heightened on a bicycle or on foot. And motorists can't see shit. Lulu-Sophia's observations are always out of the blue, simple and poignant. Wonderful to see how she notices what goes on around her. Not long a...