Busting Urban Sprawl Myths

With my work I travel a lot and that means I meet loads of interesting people and learn a whole bunch of new things all the time. Sometimes you hear the same things over and over when you're dealing with the same subject matter. Often it's no problem. All part of the game. Sometimes, however, you hear certain things in loop. Things that you wonder about.

One of them is that North American cities are just bigger. On a recent visit to Calgary a couple of weeks ago I must have heard it a dozen times. It's often a (not so) secret code for "we're not really committed to taking the bicycle seriously as transport." As though trying to brush off comparisons with urban cycling in Copenhagen and other Euro-filth concepts. No matter how often I highlight the fact that Copenhagen has the third largest urban sprawl in Europe and most of Copenhagen outside the medieval city centre is a 20th century invention. Nope. "Ain't gonna work here, bubba. Now git off ma lawn."

So I opened up Google Earth. Zoomed out to about 60 km. Highlighted Calgary, above, in yellow. The rough line of the city limits. Very rough... it was late and I was drinking wine.

Then I did the same for Copenhagen.

Urban Sprawl Comparison - Calgary and Copenhagen

The rough line of Greater Copenhagen is in blue. I slapped Calgary onto Copenhagen, tilting it to make it fit nicer, and there you have it.

I didn't include the cities in the region that are bedroom cities for Copenhagen or Calgary. Just drew up the rough line around the urban sprawl. Calgary has about 1 million people and Greater Copenhagen about 1.9 million.

Urban Sprawl Comparison - Calgary and Copenhagen and Melbourne

Here's both cities slapped onto Melbourne. Their metro area has about 4 million people. So they're bigger. Duh.

Urban Sprawl Comparison - Calgary and Copenhagen and Amsterdam

And here's Amsterdam, with Calgary and Copenhagen laid on top. It was tougher to see what was sprawl and what was farmland on the Amsterdam map, but it's still not far off.

So with that aside, I am well and truly tired of hearing about many cities and their perception of size. Time to move on.

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling - Why It's Bad

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At long last logic prevails. A new campaign has hit the streets of Denmark, thanks to the visionaries at The Danish Road Safety Council [Sikker Trafik] and Trygfonden [an insurance company]. Intense promotion of walking helmets for pedestrians has begun. This logic has been sorely missed. These two organisations have happily promoted bike helmets but pedestrians suffer just as many head injuries, if not more. This Danish campaign poster reads: "A walking helmet is a good helmet" "Traffic safety isn't just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups." The slogan is catchy in Danish since it kind of rhymes. All in all it's a brilliant project. Let's save some lives. The new walking helmets will be available in the Danish Cyclists Union's [Dansk cyklist forbund] shop. Although, as the...

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...

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