The Life-Sized City Blog

What IS it about Antwerp? Like I've been blogging about, it's quite a suprising city on so many levels. Here's another example. While many "bicycle enthusiasts" get all neo-sanctimonious about bicycles, let's see how "religious enthusiasts" use the bicycle. Oh, wait... they use it just like any other Citizen Cyclist.  The Muslim community in the Borgerhout neighourhood of Antwerp arranged a bike ride. Participants paid €2 to take part and the proceeds went to a school project in Kebdana, a village in Northern Morocco. They also hoped to promote better bicycle facilities and parking, as well as bringing all the different people in the community together. The Fietsersbond donated two bikes to Kebdana and two others to teach new arrivals from Morocco how to cycle. My friend Stef, from the Belgian NGO Fietsersbond.be took these shots a few weeks back. The ride went past six different mosques and it was promoted by the imams - top photo. ...

Here in Denmark, the summer's silly season is replaced by scary season. As the air gradually cools and the leaves fade to yellow, the people who produce "safety" campaigns start firing up their stoves to cook up a new batch of car-centric fear gulasch. The new kid on the block is the Vejdirektoratet - Danish Road Directorate with their VejKryds.dk campaign that hopes to raise awareness about right-turn collisions. We blogged about this campaign back in May when one of our readers - by chance - was invited to a feedback session hosted by Megafon.dk aimed at testing the campaign on a panel of citizens. You can read about the preview here: Fear Campaign Sneak Preview . The campaign is now on the streets. Compared to the original proposal it is clear that the Road Directorate listened - slightly - to the feedback panel and toned down the campaign a bit. It's still corny as hell with a "rhyme" theme. The main tagline is "Du tror du bli'r set, me...

A Dutch study has proved, yet again, that the level of dangerous microparticles are higher inside cars than on bikes. I posted about how Traffic Kills More People Than Traffic Accidents before, but this recent survey reconfirms the science. Despite the air pollution it is healthier to cycle in traffic than sitting in a car. The levels of particles in the air are greater inside a vehicle than on the bike lanes. So even though a cyclist breathes in more air than a motorist, the concentration of microparticles is lower for the cyclist. The health benefits of cycling greatly overshadow the harm caused by breathing polluted air, the study adds. The study was carried out by Gerad Hoek from Utrecht University and presented in the magazine for the Dutch cyclist organisation, Fietzersbond. If a cyclist wishes to avoid unhealthy particles, it is recommended that he or she avoids areas with heavy traffic and rush hour periods. In particular, avoiding trucks and scooters exhaust is of...