The Life-Sized City Blog

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'...

For Copenhagenize the Velo-City conference in Copenhagen was a whirlwhind of meeting wonderful people/colleagues from all over the planet. 'Networking' is far too dull a word for it and doesn't do it justice. The League of American Bicyclists collaborated with Copenhagenize Consulting on a series of bicycle tours before and during the conference. Bike rides around the city to see the infrastructure highlights in the Danish capital. We, in turn, enlisted the help of Biomega and Baisikeli to provide the bikes. One of the tours was with New York's Dept of Tranport Commissioner Janette Sadikh-Khan and her crew. I was impressed to hear that the New Yorkers all took time out of their annual holiday leave to come to Copenhagen for the conference. What commitment. Another tour with the League and Copenhagenize was a ride to show John Burke, the president of American bike company Trek , around the city, along with some other Americans. Andrew, City Councillor from Dublin and...

There was a record low number of traffic fatalities in Copenhagen in 2009. Five people lost their lives, compared to 16 in 2008. Right off the bat I'll say that apart from being wonderful news, such stats are tricky. 2006 was the best year ever for fewest traffic fatalities in Denmark but there was nothing special about that year. These stats rise and fall seemingly without logic. There are, however, many good things that can be done. The current municipal government, including the Mayor in charge of the traffic department, Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard , has bounced around the idea about lowering the speed limit to 40 km/h in Copenhagen. ( It's a great step in the right direction, but I don't actually understand why the 30 km/h zones we're seeing all over Europe aren't on the table. There are amazing safety results from all the cities that have implemented them. I guess Bo Asmus didn't see my Christmas wish list from last year. ) But hey... let's just concentrate on...