The Life-Sized City Blog

Photo: City of Copenhagen/Rambøll Here's a little story about some innovation soon to show up in Copenhagen. In a city with many busstops and cycle tracks, there is the question of coexistence. For a number of years, the City of Copenhagen has worked hard to establish islands at busstops for the bus passengers to use when disembarking. It really is the baseline for infrastructure and the City, by and large, prefers it over anything else. Since the City starting retrofitting busstops to provide islands, safety has increased dramatically across the city. In 2015, The City of Copenhagen will establish LED bus islands at certain locations where there isn't space to build a proper island. When there is no bus, there will be a green strip along the curb. When a bus rolls up, the LED light show will expand across the cycle track to indicate to all traffic users that passengers have the priority. When the bus leaves, the LED lights revert to the green strip. The Mayor for Traff...

Just spotted this yesterday on the approach to Knippels Bridge over the harbour. Rumble strips for bicycles. The reason is simple. The curb between the bus island and the bike lane is low here, only a couple of centimetres. Low enough for a cyclist not to notice but just high enough for it to catch a wheel, sending the cyclist tumbling onto their bottom. So... rumble strips. There is a lot of traffic on this street - 20,000 bicycles a day - so in the morning rush hour there are certainly bicycles spread out wide, close to the curb. Good vibrations. And speaking of bus islands, this is a common feature in Copenhagen. At the top right you can see a zebra crossing for pedestrians/bus passengers to use to cross the bike lane when the coast is clear.