The Life-Sized City Blog

TEST I took part in a radio debate last week. Four guests and a journalist. In that forty-five minutes, I experienced a number of things including, but not limited to, the anti-intellectualisation of our society, emotional propaganda, alternative facts, manipulative and selective choice of facts, The Culture of Fear and the negative branding of cycling. You might expect I was on American or Australian radio. Nope. I was a 12 minute bike ride from Copenhagenize Design Company’s Copenhagen office - at Denmark’s national broadcaster, DR, on their flagship radio channel P1 Debat . The occasion was a debate about bike helmets. The week before, a Danish media personality, Mads Christensen , tossed out a remark on a television programme about how he let his kids decide for themselves, at the age of eight, if they wanted to wear a bike helmet or not. His comments were simply based on rationality about real or percieved dangers in society. Nevertheless, they generated a great deal of d...

My " Monumental Motion - a cycling life in the capital of Denmark " photo exhibition - produced together with the Danish Foreign Ministry's Public Diplomacy Office -  continues to travel and will do so for another year or so. It's been brilliant to attend some of the openings - when my schedule permits - and meet inspirational people in cities around the world. All the exhibitions have been great. Like any photographer it's a thrill see your work on display. The world premiere in Ljubjlana, Slovenia last year has to be the best exhibition thus far. The City has a permanent exhibition space along the river and the photos of Copenhagen's cycling life were blown up to an impressive size. The vice-Mayor of the city spoke at the opening, as did the Danish Ambassador and myself. There was also a photo competition for local photographers to take photos of their cycling city and I got to award the prizes for the best photos (bottom left). Ljubljana is a...

For one brilliant week in September 2011, the air pollution levels from car traffic in Copenhagen fell by a whopping 30%. The City of Copenhagen took a bold step in planning the Road Racing World Championships in cycling this year by deciding to close off most of the city centre to car traffic during the event. While most people have tried to calculate the massive boost the event had - and will have - on tourism, Copenhagen's brand and what not, it turns out the event improved the air quality for the citizens of the city. It didn't have anything directly to do with the professional cyclists racing around the city. The ban on cars in the city centre of Copenhagen meant that 60,000 cars and trucks were kept out and 75 streets were car-free. Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard during the World Championships. A few months before the event, I had an idea. I thought about the study done after 9/11 where temperatures were measured in the US for the five days that air traffic was...

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'...

Recently the Danish State Railways [DSB] announced that bikes are now free on all the S-Trains in the Greater Copenhagen area. It was pretty big news here but DSB launched a comprehensive campaign to let the people know about it. On the busiest bicycle street in the western world, Nørrebrogade, they put up a mock S-train carriage on the bike lane. The morning bicycle rush hour on this street, which averages 38,000 cyclists a day, would find it hard to miss the advertising campaign. Whether people rode through the train tunnel or past it. On this stretch the bike lanes are double wide, around 5 metres. When the cyclists stopped at the red light up ahead, they were given a brochure about the fact that bikes are now free on the trains, as well as a free ticket for the train. Rather cool. Print adverts in a variety of themes about the new initiative feature prominently in the city these days. This advert on an outdoor ashtray, featuring beer glasses as wheels, reads: "Invite your bic...