The Life-Sized City Blog

A car blocking the bike lane/cycle track. The source of much irritation and many social media photos. This photo, however, is from Denmark and that is a car that we WANT driving down the cycle track. Cities like Copenhagen and Aarhus don't just build the necessary infrastructure to encourage cycling, keep people safe and help make people FEEL safe, they regularly measure the quality of the infrastructure. Citizens always say in polls that the quality of the cycle tracks and bike lanes is of utmost importance to them when they are considering to commute by bicycle. So, specially adapated cars like these are regularly sent down the cycle tracks to measure for bumps and smoothness, among other factors, using laser technology and recording the data. There is a veritable armada of vehicles designed to operate on cycle tracks. Street sweepers, municipal garbage collection and, not least, snow clearance vehicles like those in our classic article: The Ultimate Snow Clearance Blo...

Spotted in the Danish town of Fredericia. A bicyle pump and a DIY repair workshop with tools. For use by the public. Great bicycle symbolism on the urban landscape. Oh and while we're at it... that old myth about Denmark being flat... you're confusing us with the Netherlands. Copenhagen, certainly, is nice and even with only a few hills but farther west you'll find some decent topography. Like in Fredericia. Citizen Cyclists crawl up this hill on bicycles like they've done for 125 years. Oh, and coast happily down, too, of course. In fact, in the Danish national anthem, the hills and valleys are praised. A friend of mine, Tom, went on a cycle holiday in northern Jutland and the hills surprised the hell out of him ... Denmark's second city, Aarhus, is pretty similar to most of Portland or Seattle. And yet they have over 25% modal share for bicycles.

Last year the City of Aarhus - Denmark's second largest city - launched a comprehensive campaign to encourage more citizens to cycle. The city's post code is 8000 and the campaign is subsequently called " 8000 Advantages to Cycling ". Here's some of the highlights of the campaign. Aarhus lags behind Copenhagen and Odense in the levels of cycle traffic so this campaign is aimed at doing something about it. By and large, from a marketing perspective, the campaign does well to sell urban cycling as positive. There are snippets of fear mongering present in the form of bike helmet promotion, despite the warnings of doing so, but it's impressive in the current Culture of Fear climate in Denmark that the campaign is largely positive. Photo from the campaign. The eternally iconic Cycling Girl so dear to Danish culture. There were also various programmes as a part of the campaign to bring the joy of cycling to children. The city sent people out onto the streets and b...