The Life-Sized City Blog

Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. Even in Copenhagen. There is a street in a densely-populated neigbourhood in Copenhagen - Østerbro - without any cycle tracks. I know, I know... it's like a street in New York without honking taxis or a street in Paris without cafés populated by moody philosophy students. It's weird. Also because it's a long street in a thriving neighbourhood and it's one of the streets in the city with a far too high levels of incidents involving bicycles. It's weird because it's a perfect street for cycle tracks. It's also weird because only 29% of households in Copenhagen even own a car but politicians and the City say that taking out car parking on this street would be "difficult". A local politican, Jonas Bjørn Jensen, when campaigning for the last election decided to ask people in the neighbourhood if they wanted cycle tracks. Over 90% of the people he asked said, "yes". Together with ...

So this was a nice surprise. I had an early morning meeting in the City Centre and discovered that Vestergade is now a Bicycle Street (cykelgade in Danish). The Dutch call them Fietsstraat, I believe. We have one in a quiet neighbourhood already and they have one in Aarhus, but this is the first decent one in Copenhagen. Basically, as the sign says, there is only slow driving allowed on this street and the cyclists decide the flow and tempo. It is one way for cars but cyclists are free to ride in both directions. The idea is nothing new. Rest assured, there has been a lot of effort to implement these Bicycle Streets for a long while but the Copenhagen police - like with so many other bicycle-related issues - have refused to allow it . Bizarrely, they can veto things they don't understand, without being obliged to say why or refer to any evidence. Now we see that a Bicycle Street is in place, if only for a test period. But it'll work, so I'm counting on it being m...