The Life-Sized City Blog

The Dutch national bicycle council - Fietsberaad - has published a paper called "Bicycle policies of the European principals: continuous and integral". In it they compare and analyze the bicycle culture and infrastructure in five Dutch cities and five other European cities. Among the latter, Copenhagen. I've included the chapter on Copenhagen here. It's a long post, but worth a read. As is the entire paper. The link to the .pdf is at the bottom of this post. It's interesting and curious to read what foreign eyes see when looking at the bicycle life in Copenhagen. There are some discrepencies in the stats and opinions in the paper and I've included my own comments in red. Most of the paper deals with the CITY of Copenhagen, which is a small city, and not the entire Copenhagen metropolitan area/urban sprawl. It can often be misleading if you've never been here. The text below is an abridged version. Read the pdf for the full text. Off we go: ----- Unlike mos...

This is 'a hub of Copenhageners'. We coined this phrase a while back, for fun. There is a long line of interesting names for animal flocks in English like: - A leash of greyhounds - A gaggle of geese - An exaltation of larks - A shrewdness of apes - A troop of kangaroos - A parliament of owls - A siege of herons - A crash of rhinoceri We played a game over at Cycle Chic a while back and I fancied reviving it. What words can we come up with for bicycles and bicycle culture? Let's write the dictionary, shall we? Here's what we came up with: Val - The King of Kargo Bikes in Seattle : - A pallet of cargo bikes - A lounge of recumbents I came up with: - A cove of beach cruisers - A sweat of racing bikes - A posture of upright bikes - A load of Xtra cycles - An insecurity of helmets [;-)] - An elevation of high-heeled Copenhagen fashionistas - A fold of Bromptons Jason proposed these: - A tower of tall bikes - A cog of fixed gear bikes - A trick of BMXers - A basket of towni...

I recieved an email from Aaron regarding new rules for bicycles in South Australia. On the Bicycle Victoria website there is this article : Rules threaten cargo bikes 21 May 2009. Road rules controlling bikes in South Australia appear to ban cargo bikes and any other bike wider than 700 millimetres. In South Australia right now size matters when it comes to bikes. A Bicycle Victoria member Dan Kortschak noticed these sentences from the official South Australia publication “ Cycling and the Law ” [opens as a .pdf]: “The overall width of any equipment or load carried on a bicycle must not exceed 700 millimetres” “The handlebars must be... no more than 700 millimetres wide.” This means that many styles of bicycle of increasing popularity such as cargo bikes and cruisers with wide handlebars could be seen as illegal for use on South Australian roads. I wondered how these rules compare with the Danish traffic regulation concerning bicycles. Perhaps Bicycle Victoria can use them in their ...

I am so totally crap at covering the bicycle infrastructure in provincial Denmark quite simply because I rarely get out there. The opportunity arose a week ago when we motored out to the country in our car share car , to spend some time with all the kids and parents in my son's school class. Just as in Holland and many regions of other European countries, there are bike lanes pretty much everywhere. They vary in style and placement, depending on the amount of traffic they get. If you're really out in the boondocks, you may be stuck for separated lanes, but between most towns there are either lanes on each side of the road or, like in the photo above, a two-lane bike lane running parallel to the road. This bike lane runs between two towns. One with a population of 4000 and the other, 15,000. It is a part of the regional and national bike lane network. Roughly 10,000 kilometres in all. The respective county is responsible for upkeep of the lanes in its area. Such lanes are primar...

Typical Copenhagen. Someone needs to reserve this stretch of parking spots. For whatever reason, be it the arrival of a moving van or a temporary container. Who knows. They used the traditional tape and orange pylons but this is often hardly a deterrent for motorists. I've tried this before and all too often a motorist will disregard your attempt to reserve the spot. Finding parking is difficult in the centre of Copenhagen. It's frightfully expensive and the City removes 2-3% of all parking street-level parking each year, using the space for bicycle infrastructure or public spaces in general, be it trees, benches, what have you. The solution above is simple. Mark off the space you need to reserve and then use some of those bicycles leaning against a building nearby, laying them down ever so nice. A motorist may nudge a pylon out of the way but they will hardly hop out of their car to move a bicycle. Case closed. Problem solved. Copenhagen style.

You'd expect LEGO, being Danish, to have featured the bicycle amongst their products. There are no bicycles in my boy's 10 kg pile of LEGO - a potpourri of Lego spanning 35 years and including the new stuff, my childhood lego and my little brothers, too - but I've seen them before. So a little googling brought me to this nerdy website listing sets that include LEGO bicycles. I slapped a number of the photos into the graphic above and included a couple of images I found on the internet. My favourite is at bottom left. A petrol station shop. A cyclist pedals calmly away carrying an ice cream in one hand and fresh flowers in her panniers. She is glancing over at a motorist who can't control his vehicle and who, it appears, forgot his change. I like the contrast. Above there is Café Corner, with a bike parked out front, of course. Two of the shots feature merchandising for the German Team Telekom from back in 2000. The Tour de France is [has been] such a major cultural eve...

I don't wish to suggest that the cyclist above is a recent immigrant. She is probably born and raised here and can speak better Danish than me. The photo is for illustration only. Immigrants from an OECD country who move to Denmark face cultural and linguistic challenges, just as they would moving anywhere else. An Australian or a Spaniard moving here will have to adjust to the mentality of the Danes and try to learn the unintelligible language. For immigrants from other regions the challenges are often greater due to vastly diffent cultural norms. While an Australian or a Spaniard, as a rule, have probably learned to ride a bicycle in their childhood, many new arrivals from Arab countries or Africa have not. We've had many bicycle courses for immigrants over the years and learning to ride a bicycle is a great way to integrate in Danish society. You'll get up close and personal with your new fellow citizens on the bike lanes but you'll also be given the freedom of movem...

Japan has a bicycle culture that the UK and US, among others, drool over. I love seeing the bikes and the overwhelming bicycle culture whenever I'm in Tokyo. So very cool and inspiring. The backbone of the bike culture are the young mothers of the nation. They practice the tradition of 'sannin-nori' - or three-on-a-bike - whenever they have to transport their kids. Most kindergartens in Japan ban mothers from dropping off their kids by car, so these sturdy 'mama-chariots' are an integral part of daily life. One kid up front, another on the back and the mum in the middle. It's a sight you see often in Copenhagen, but in Japan these mothers form a formidable army of toddler transport. When the Government's new cycling laws - a giant leap backwards by all accounts - banned the sannin-nori culture, the mothers of Japan got cross. Their initial protests were heard and it was quickly suggested that they could continue riding with two kids if they rode trikes...

I've mentioned this before but I haven't seen it for a while. Until today. This is a unique way of advertising in Copenhagen. Printing rain covers for bike seats with [insert your product of message here] and then slap them onto hundreds of bikes. These ones were outside the university and advertised for a job and career convention where students can learn about different job opportunities. Other times it's a product or an event.

Row of new bikes for sale outside a local bike shop in Copenhagen. As one might expect in a cycling nation, bike sales are healthy. According to the Danish bicycle industry, the good people of Denmark bought 500,000 new bikes in 2006. Not bad for a country of 5.3 million people. It appears to be new record. We here at Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog are guessing that the number will increase in 2007 since we seem to be seeing a lot of new bikes on the streets. The average price of a bike in Denmark in 2006 is 2900 kroner [€386 / $580], which is up from 2500 kroner in 2005. The increase in sales causes a boom for bike workshops, too. While Danes [along with the Dutch] cycle more than any other nation - 1000 km a year per capita - most people can't be bothered repairing their bikes themselves. Whether it is a flat tyre or a rusty chain, Danes prefer dropping them off at a local bike shop. The result is a shortage of bike mechanics in the Danish kingdom. It is estimated that 100 bike me...

15 accidents per year in Copenhagen's most dangerous intersection has been reduced to just one. The results are quite concrete after Copenhagen City redesigned the intersection at Gyldenloevsgade and Soegade by The Lakes in inner Copenhagen a year ago. In Copenhagen, many intersections have both traffic lights for cars and separate ones for bikes . The solution was coordinating the bike traffic lights to change to green a couple of seconds before the cars. A simple solution. It is worth noting that the intersection is a major cycle artery for bike commuters. Over 25,000 cyclists a day on weekdays cross the intersection. If you calculate that there are 260 weekdays in a year, that means that 6,500,000 million bikes cross the intersection annually. With that in mind, 15 serious accidents is not a bad statistic. Reducing that to one is spectacular. The intersection in question: Via: DR P4

The fact that cycling is healthy is not a newsflash. However, as we highlighted in a previous post over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic , about why this city rides bikes so much, the majority of Copenhageners don't ride primarily to save the world or because they're health fanatics. According to the study: 54% ride because it is easy and fast . 19% ride because of the benefits of excercising. 7% ride because it is cheap. 6% ride because it is handy. 1% ride because of the environmental benefits. Nevertheless, the Copenhagen City Council - in their Biannual Cycle Report - had the consultancy company Trafitec rate the societal and health aspects of our bicycle culture. While these figures are specific to Copenhagen, based on our current levels of health and welfare, the results and stats are interesting nonetheless. Just the facts: - Physically active people live ca. 5 years longer than the physically inactive. - Physically inactive persons suffer on average for four more years from len...

The City of Copenhagen's biannual Cycle Report [the link is to a pdf and it's in Danish] is a goldmine of great statistics regarding our bicycle culture. Even though our bike infrastructure is highly-advanced, the City is constantly revising and reviewing all the issues regarding integration of bikes in the streets. It is an ongoing, long-term affair. Bikes have equal access everywhere in the city, but there are as a rule dedicated bike lanes on most roads with traffic. When Copenhagen builds new bike lanes on a stretch of road, there is a bicycle traffic increase of 20% and a 10% decrease in car traffic. Bike lanes subsequently increase cyclists' safety and perception of safety, encouraging them to ride more. The flipside of this is that there is a tendency for more accidents at intersections. The use of blue painted bike lanes across intersections is on the rise, as they help cyclists and motorists see the bike lanes. Having one blue painted strip of bike lane leading ...

"Everytime I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells Let's get one thing straight. While we're not banner-waving activists, we think activism is fantastic. We're all for it, especially the activism towards creating bike culture and infrastructure like we have in Copenhagen in other cities in the world. We just feel the need to play devil's advocate regarding the Critical Mass movement. Certainly the style of Critical Mass prevalent in, for example, North American cities. Rides that feature an aggressive, in-your-face tone. There are many positive examples of protest rides that are calm, cool and accepted. Budapest comes to mind. Even the rides in Prague - where they changed the name from Critical Mass to something akin to 'bike ride' in order to remove themselves from the North American versions. Generlally, it's a brilliant concept. Democratic to the core. Celebrations, even. Even if there ar...

A classic Copenhagen bike lane with Copenhageners doing what they do best. We found a spot of statistics from Eurobarometer about how many kilometres a year citizens of EU countries ride bikes on average. There is a massive difference between top and bottom. The Netherlands.............1019 km Denmark..........................958 km Belgium............................327 km Germany.........................300 km Sweden............................300 km Finland.............................282 km Ireland.............................228 km Italy..................................168 km Austria.............................154 km Greece................................91 km France................................87 km UK......................................81 km Luxembourg....................48 km Portugal............................35 km Spain.................................24 km Here's the figures for North America: USA/Canada...................30 km Netherlands and Denmark on top... h...

Even in the World's Best Cycle City there are "dangers" to be had. The Copenhagen City Council had a campaign last year to make Copenhageners aware of the dangers of riding without lights on their bikes, as well as other dangers. The photo is a screengrab from the Brug hovedet (Use Your Head) website. They chose to use a negative campaign portraying death and destruction. When you have 37% of the population of Copenhagen commuting on bikes each day, you'd expect that a large number forget their lights. I do, usually in the autumn, after the seemingly endless summer days with light until 23:00. By winter I usually have my lights in my bag. But I live in an extremely well-lit urban landscape, so I ain't that worried. The website [now taken offline] was in Danish, but there were 'interesting' features. Among them a map of the city showing the statistically most dangerous intersections and a game where you have to steer a bike through the city. Although you w...

Cycling Weather , originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness] . This is from one of the national newspapers here in Denmark. A daily forecast for Cycling Weather, including wind strength and direction and a reminder for when it is mandatory for turning on your bike lights. Commuting by bike is serious business in Denmark.