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...

DEPRESSING UPDATE - 13 MAY 2013 - SCROLL TO BOTTOM Frederiksberg. The city is an municipal island surrounded by Copenhagen and with its 90,000 residents, it is Denmark's most densely-populated city. Generally, the city is good at providing for cycling and around 35% of the residents cycle to work or school. This is the city in which I live and where Copenhagenize Design Co. has it's offices. There are, however, problems that need solving and there is no solutions on the way. One of them is highlighted here in this article. Even though only 35% of the population of the city own cars (the number is 29% for Copenhagen), the main arteries are clogged with cars and trucks all through the day. Over 26,000 drive past my windows each day. Almost all of them are "parasites", as Italian traffic planners call them . When I looked out the window at the intersection between Nordre Fasanvej and Godthåbsvej (above) I was pleased to see that work was underway on resurfacing...

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.