The Life-Sized City Blog

Golly. What a lovely place to live. When I was in Ferrara, Italy a couple of weeks ago I was having a good chat with a colleague who works for the City. We were looking at a map of the city and he was filling me in about the various traffic and bicycle-friendly initiatives in place. For example, Ferrara doesn't have a congestion charge - it has a congestion BAN. Non-residents are not allowed to enter and goods transport must pay a fee. Eight cameras are installed around the city to photograph number plates. If you're caught in the city without a permit, you are fined €100. Ah, simplicity. Anyway, he was telling me about a main route through the city and plans to tackle the motorists who use it. He called them parasites . I thought it was a bit out of character for him but he kept using the word. Finally, I had to ask why he was using the word and he looked at me quizzically and said that it was simply the word they used. Parasites. First attested in English 1539, the w...

Two days in a row we get to add new installments to Copenhagenize's The Car Industry Strikes Back series , showing how the bicycle is increasingly regarded as a threat to the market share. General Motors sailed into The Perfect Twitter Storm yesterday and today.... There is a car share company in the States called Zipcar . Car sharing is good. I use a car share programme here in Copenhagen - okay... only about 3 times a year, but hey. It's there when I need it. Once again, it's interesting to note and track the rising resistance of the car industry and related auto-centric industries to the rise of the bicycle in our cities. It comes as a bit of a surprise that Zipcar would go after bicycle culture in a campaign, but here they are, doing it. Zipcar is, of course, on Twitter , if anyone is interested. It was Jym Dyer on Twitter who pointed us in the direction of Zipcar's "Sometimes you just need a Zipcar" campaign, pictured above in situ, from his phot...