The Life-Sized City Blog

By Mia Riefkohl / Copenhagenize Design Company The City of Copenhagen minds the gaps. Over the past decade, we have witnessed radical changes in the connectivity of Copenhagen, a city bisected by a harbour. We’ve watched as thirteen bridges have popped up (with four more on their way), connecting previously cut off neighbourhoods while facilitating a 13 km recreational path, the Harbour Circle . Mobility and bicycle user experience are both high priorities on the City’s agenda, and these bridges are only a part of a greater plan. But most notable of all, each and every one of these new bridges are off-limits to automobiles, saying loud and clear that this is a city for people. A Life-Sized City. To show how serious the city takes connectivity, we created a map showcasing the new and upcoming bicycle bridges of Copenhagen. The map above is divided into three categories: the built, the temporary and the proposed. The ten already built are currently in use by those looking fo...

By Mark Werner / Copenhagenize Design Company Copenhagen takes no time to rest when it comes to the bicycle, just months after officially kicking off Havneringen, the Harbour Circle project, the route is now complete upon the opening of Inderhavnesbroen, Copenhagen’s newest pedestrian and bicycle bridge. The Harbour Circle only further showcases the city’s commitment to innovative bicycle infrastructure investments . In fall of 2016 the Circle will officially open, a 13 km recreational cycling and pedestrian path lining Copenhagen’s scenic blue harbour and the natural greenery of the city's south side. In recent years Copenhagen has taken strides to connect the city by bridging points along the harbour. The Harbour Circle will serve as a channel for both tourists and locals alike to easily access some of the city’s most notable sites. Stop for ice cream along Nyhavn, swim and relax at Islands Brygge, or stroll through the lush greenery at Amager Fælled. The point of this pat...

Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, spoke at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig today and he brought an interesting observation to the discussion. Millions of dollars are spent protecting frogs and lizards but pedestrians and cyclists often suffer from lack of infrastructure. It's a great comment. Ranking frogs higher than humans in our spending. What he is referring to is the many wildlife crossings that are built to protect wildlife and prevent wildlife/car conflicts. The most well-known examples are in Canada, providing safe passage for wildlife that wish to migrate across the Trans-Canada Highway: What an impressive, expensive structure. I'm pleased that the wildlife doesn't have to suffer the destructive capability of the automobile. Hell, they don't even have to suffer SEEING the cars because of the foliage. 30,000 cars a day pass this point in Banff National Park in the summer. Which, however, is a number similar to the number of cars ...

ADDENDUM - 09 MAY 2011 The head of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office, Andreas Røhl , sent us a comment about the above article. It's at the end of this article. ------------ On April 16 there was an article in Politiken , a national newspaper, about some visionary new goals for cycling in Copenhagen. The current mayor in charge of the Technical & Environmental Administration (DoT), Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, is quoted as saying the following soundbites: "If you don't dare to be ambitious, you don't get anywhere". The journalist, who apparently suffers from short and medium term memory loss, wrote this: "It is daring. The goal is that 50% of all trips to work or education in the city of Copenhagen will be on bicycles by 2025." He happily quotes the mayor's press release (Ctrl+C - Ctrl+V is, of course, the New Journalism): Aiming High Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard admits that it is a high goal to aim for. "We haven't seen cities that can reach 50%. It'...

San Francisco visualisation from Connecting the City. I had an email conversation with Andy Thornley from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and he dropped me this link to Connecting the City website about the visions for making San Francisco a more liveable city. It includes interesting visualisations of what the city could/should look like regarding bicycle infrastructure and liveable streets. Great stuff. The modal share - when asking people about commuting - is at 3.9%. Which puts San Francisco at #4 in the US . However, an SFMTA report surveyed San Franciscans as part of its 2008 State of Cycling Report and estimated that about 6% of all trips take place in San Francisco by bicycle. San Francisco is, in my mind, the Great Bike Hope for the US. Lots of positive energy, political will and visionary advocacy. The Board of Supervisors declared a new goal of 20% of trips in San Francisco by bicycle in 2020 and the Mayor has signed it so let's cross our fingers for ...

I really should get out more. I rarely get to the provinces - whether Danish or otherwise. That's just me. I prefer cities. Once in a while, however, I find myself out there. In the Danish town of Frederikssund last summer I spotted these two simple traffic calming measures. Simply narrowing the street with islands and only allowing for one way traffic through the squeeze. The bicycle lane, of course, allows for free passage. In a small Danish town like this there is often a combination of painted lines, as above, and physically separated cycle tracks - depending on the traffic volume of the street. On a trip to small town in Jutland for a football tournament that my son was playing in, it was reassuring to see that along every road there were cycle tracks - and they were cleared of snow even way out there. Again, bi-directional tracks in some places and - if the traffic volume is sufficient - a track on either side of the highway. With over 10,000 km of bicycle lanes, path...

It was a long-time coming this little film. It's about the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and how bicycle friendly the university is. I shot it when I visited Mexico City last year and spoke at UNAM's architecture faculty about promoting bicycle culture. I figured I'd whip it together after reading James' article on The Urban Country about how McGill University in Montreal has banned bicycle riding on their campus. After rolling my eyes and lamenting the lack of rationality at such an esteemed place of learning I revisted the footage from UNAM. The main campus, by the way, is stunningly beautiful and is a World Heritage Site. The campus is largely car-free and as far back as 2004 they started a bike share programme called BiciPuma. It has since grown and the university has wonderful bicycle infrastructure all over the campus. The university's bicycle friendly policy and resulting infrastructure and facilities are the yardstick by which all other u...

It's often in the details. If you're cycling down the street in the background (which is my back street) you're going to do one of two things when you get to the end. If you're turning right, it's easy. You turn onto the cycle track and continue on. If, however, you want to turn left you have to get across the street to the cycle track in the foreground. The City of Frederiksberg made it easier for by claiming half a car parking spot for the purpose of creating a passageway between the parked cars. A few painted lines and a pictogram. Here's another example just around the corner.

It's rare that I have cash in my pockets as everything is debit cards here - from a pack of gum to you name it. But a had a 200 kroner note the other day and it surprised me to see that it's a new design! That's how rare I see cash. Anyway, it's of Knippels Bridge over the harbour and, right there on the money, is a bike lane. To the left of the sidewalk. It's seperated up to the bridge and on the other side but over the bridge it's a painted line. It's very wide and features about 20,000 cyclists a day. Now I'm sure the artist was focusing on the tower that controls the drawbridge and the spires of the city in the background, but I'm also sure that it's the first time bicycle infrastructure has featured on national currency. :-)

Just spotted this yesterday on the approach to Knippels Bridge over the harbour. Rumble strips for bicycles. The reason is simple. The curb between the bus island and the bike lane is low here, only a couple of centimetres. Low enough for a cyclist not to notice but just high enough for it to catch a wheel, sending the cyclist tumbling onto their bottom. So... rumble strips. There is a lot of traffic on this street - 20,000 bicycles a day - so in the morning rush hour there are certainly bicycles spread out wide, close to the curb. Good vibrations. And speaking of bus islands, this is a common feature in Copenhagen. At the top right you can see a zebra crossing for pedestrians/bus passengers to use to cross the bike lane when the coast is clear.

I'd forgotten about this photo from last summer. Two postmen racing down the bicycle path on their Christania bikes after finishing their rounds. Heading back to the post centre on Finsensvej. Enjoying every minute of it. Love it.

One-Way - Cyclists Excepted The City of Copenhagen is currently working on some small but important changes on our cityscape that will make things a bit easier for the city's cyclists. There is a network of one-way streets in the city - both the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods - which is mostly directed at motorised traffic. In some instances the one-way restriction applies to bicycles. Not that it means much. Bicycles regularly follow these desire lines. The City is now tidying up and legitimising bicycle traffic in the opposite direction down one-way streets. This is, of course, the norm in many bicycle-friendly cities. From left: Vienna, Prague, Paris Here's an excerpt from the City of Copenhagen's press release: Small sign on the road - big help for cyclists It's not just bicycle bridges and massive intersection redesign that make the city better for cyclists. Often a simple sign or a small piece of bicycle lane can make things better ...

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...