The Life-Sized City Blog

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...

You may recall the article we did last year about the railings and footrests for cyclists here in Copenhagen . The pilot project has proved so successful that the City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office is now placing 20 more around the city to add to the existing five. For no reason other than spoiling our cyclists and to thank them for cycling in the city. The footrests all feature the "Hej Cyklist" campaign that Copenhagenize Consulting developed for the Bicycle Office . Simple, friendly and encouraging texts like "Hi, cyclist! Rest your foot here and thanks for cycling in the city". I spotted one of the new ones the other day, pictured above. It reads, "Win a cargo bike. Send in a photo of a lovely bicycle moment". The railings make it easy to rest or lean at red lights. Which is something we do at every given opportunity. Lightposts are rubbed smooth from hands and feet seek out anything to lean up against. As you can see in this set on Flickr...

I've been quietly looking into noise recently. There was an article back in November in a Danish newspaper about the negative effect traffic noise has on the population. A good, informative article stating that 800,000 Danes are exposed to harmful levels of traffic pollution in the form of noise alone. That's about 15% of the population. The article goes on about how very little is being done in Danish cities about reducing traffic noise. 400 million kroner were earmarked by the current government for noise reduction in 2009 but the government only manages the national roads. They have spent money on reducing noise on motorways but it's the municipalities that manage the city streets - along which most people live, 90% of them in fact - and here there is little being done. Shockingly so. What didn't really surprise me was that the article didn't mention anything about speed reduction. It was all about windows. Classic ' ignoring the bull ' talk onc...

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...

Great campaign from the City of Copenhagen earlier this year. The text reads, quite simply: "You won't believe it... You're safer on the bicycle than on the sofa!" Lack of daily exercise is harmful to your health, while physical activity keeps your body healthy. Cycling extends your life - daily excercise for minimum 30 minutes extends your life with up to five years." Not a campaign from the Traffic Dept. but rather the public health dept. On the website they state that: "With these posters Public Health Copenhagen hopes to place focus on the fact that there are very good reasons to ride a bicycle each day and we would like to highlight that Copenhageners already cycle 1.2 million km each day." Appropriate message in a city saturated with cycling. In Emerging Bicycle Cultures, it is always better to highlight the basic facts that appeal to homo sapiens, like A2Bism and quicker transport through our cities. With all that said, this is an...

Photo: Niels Ahlmann Olesen for Berlingske.dk / Urban.dk The City of Copenhagen has been on a 'charm offensive' since April 2010. The goal is to get more people to use the bike racks around the city's Metro stations, instead of leaning them up against everything else. Here's the simple trick. If you park your bicycle illegally, the City will move it over to the bike racks. Instead of finger-wagging, they will then oil your chain , pump your tires and leave a little note on your bicycle asking to kindly use the bike racks in the future. How brilliant is that? And the great thing is that the initiative has worked. "It's about getting people to stop parking their bicycles in areas that emergency service vehicles need to access if there is an incident at a Metro station", said Project Leader Poul Erik Kinimond, as his colleague Morten Schelbech oils a chain in the background. Twice a day they move bicycles at the city's largest Metro stations. "We...

The City of Copenhagen issued a press release last Friday about how the City's stash of salt for the roads and bicycle lanes is very low due to the snowstorms of the past few weeks. Salting: Bicycle Lanes and the main roads have the highest priority Because of the hard winter conditions of the past several weeks there is a shortage of road salt all over Denmark, including Copenhagen. We must therefore prioritize which roads and paths we salt. At the moment we are prioritising the bicycle lanes/cycle tracks as well as the main approach roads to the city, so that the police and ambulances can get in. Nice to see they have their priorities right. And even with another snowstorm on it's way to Denmark - the third in a week - the bicycle lanes must be kept clear.

I spotted this around Nørreport metro station. A sign from the City of Copenhagen. The train and metro station are the busiest in the nation. This is, apparently, a rescue zone in case of an accident. The sign reads: Rescue Zone Is your bicycle gone? Maybe it's in the bike rack on Israel's Square. We moved it to be on the safe side. [or 'for the sake of safety'] I like the gentle, helpful tone. What a nice sign. The City moves bicycles a hundred metres away to a large bike rack on the nearby square so that the rescue zone is kept clear and they let you know where you can, perhaps, find it.

So there's me, cycling towards the City's Technical & Environmental Administration for a meeting at the Bicycle Office when I spot something strange outside their offices. I realised from a distance that it was a kind of wind turbine. For some reason, some people have issues with the sound that large wind turbines produce. Curiously, they don't seem to mind the sound car traffic generates. But when cars started appearing on the roads of the world, there were many complaints about the noise. I don't have this issue with wind turbines, personally, but as I cycled closer I was listening to hear when I'd be able to hear some sort of whine or swoosh sound. Amazingly, this wind spire, as it's called, was completely silent, even when standing underneath it. It was also a bit of a headturner as I was photographing it. People on both sides of the street stared at it and passersby read the sign. Four students rode past, girls, and one of them announced to her friends ...

Copenhageners line up on City Hall Square to get an RFID chip installed on their bicycles. The City of Copenhagen has just launched an innovative program aimed at tracking down stolen bicycles. The program is called "Få en lille chip på" or "Get a little chip on" and involves handing out 5000 free RFID chips that Copenhageners can put on their bicycles in order to participate in the pilot program that will run until May 2010. Here's a little film made about the first chip-handing-out event. Roughly 18,000 bicycles are stolen in Copenhagen each year [there are 1.9 million bicycles in Greater Copenhagen]. Many of them end up taking up space on the sidewalks and bike racks. The City wants to be able to track them down for you but also be able to keep the sidewalks and bike racks clear of bicycles that aren't being used. On June 4th, Copenhageners could show up on the City Hall Square [pictured] to get a chip installed and so many showed up that many ended going...