The Life-Sized City Blog

One way streets. Where do bicycles fit into this ever-present downtown street model? A common question, and [from a car culture kinda perspective] understandably so. The City of Copenhagen answers that question, punctuated with an exclamation point - making Gothersgade a prime example of how to plan for cyclists and pedestrians in one-way situations. A main street in the historic city centre, Gothersgade runs past Rosenborg Castle and the Kings Gardens at a hasty 50 km/h. One segment of it, leading away from Nyhavn and toward the Kings Gardens, is a three-lane one-way stretch of traffic lined by boutiques, bodegas, and cafes. Google Maps view looking east on Gothersgade. The one-way segment, up until the redesign, had a skinny mini sidewalk and three lanes for automobiles which fluctuate between parking and driving lanes. Enter the road diet. Now we've got one lane for traffic, widened sidewalks, and cycle tracks going in on both sides. One-way streets across town are sl...

The winning design for a new bicycle bridge over Copenhagen's Inner Harbour. The current efforts of the city of Copenhagen to encourage more citizens to choose the bicycle have given us a lot of new, exciting infrastructure, not least in the form of bridges. Now there are four new bridges on the way exclusively for bicycles and pedestrians. For example above, at left, is Åbuen, a bicycle/pedestrian bridge over the busy Å Boulevard which is part of the Green Path bicycle motorway . At right is Bryggebroen, the bridge over the harbour from the Vesterbro neighbourhood to Iceland Quay. The latter features almost 10,000 cyclists a day and that's expected to increase when the infrastructure link to the existing bicycle lanes is completed on the north side. There are, of course, main bridges over the harbour. Langebro and Knippels Bridge both have over 20,000 cyclists a day each on the bike lanes parallel to the car lanes but the two bicycle/pedestrian bridges pictured above have cre...