The Life-Sized City Blog

We've often wondered where the religious types were on intelligent transport. You'd think there would be enough inspiration in their books - Bible/Torah/Koran to support healthy, modern living. Yet it's not often you see churches and religious organistations coming out in support of liveable cities. So then our friend Paul in Vienna sent us a link to an intiative by the Catholic and Protestant churches of Austria. Car Fasting - or Autofasten , in German . A brilliant intiative to encourage people to go on a car fast and seek alternatives. Here's what I lamely translated from their website: Car Fasting is ... - An initiative to encourage a change of independent mobility between Ash Wednesday (13 Feb) to Holy Saturday (30 March). - Suggesting choosing available alternatives like rail, bus, bicycle, foot, car-pooling) in order to discover something new and to experiment. - Contributing to new experiences and to public health. - An opportunity to shape a bet...

This post is by one of Copenhagenize's finest, Rachel.  She's been involved in quite a few of our projects, including the next Copenhagenize Index for bicycle-friendly cities. By now we all know (or have at least heard) that cycling is beneficial for cities, and the benefits range from improving health to decreasing congestion. For those who aren’t on board yet, some of the findings we developed here at Copenhagenize should help change your mind. We can talk on and on about the various benefits that come with bikes, but when it comes to municipalities actually implementing policies and infrastructure, the conversation will inevitably turn to numbers. How do the real costs of driving a car compare with the costs of riding a bike? We believe we have developed a comprehensive cost analysis to properly compare these modes of transport. With Christine Grant spearheading this effort, we were able to come up with a cost analysis that incorporated typical factors such a...

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...

Copenhagen Nurse doing her rounds by bicycle . Don't be surprised if you see a cyclist in hospital whites pedalling about the city of Frederiksberg, in the middle of Copenhagen [population: 91,000]. Nurses providing post-natal care to new mothers and fathers ride around the city, and in Copenhagen as well, but treating the elderly in their own home has also proved to be beneficial. Frederiksberg Hospital sends nurses out to elderly citizens in order to treat them at home. An initiative that gives the elderly patients a greater peace of mind, but also saves money on hospitalisation. The nurses ride out to patients when a care home, a doctor or the person's home helper calls for assistance. The initiative has been in place since 2005 and it is now seen to bear fruit. Frederiksberg Hospital believes that 82% of the cycling visits have thwarted a potential hospital visit, because it was possible to treat the problem in the patient's own home. While the hospital is pl...

Readers may recall Copenhagenize's call for logical campaigns - why not legislation - for health warning on cars , like the ones we see on cigarette packets. This features in the talk I give in many cities: Four Goals for Promoting Urban Cycling. It always gets a laugh and often gets a mention in the press coverage of the talks. You can then imagine my thrill upon recieving the following photo from our reader Marián, in the Czech Republic. Look at that. What a billboard. Right there on the left, slapped bravely and boldly onto a gridlock photo is the health warning label for the new millenium. It reads, in Czech, "Driving a car harms you and your environment" Brilliant. Okay, it's a Czech Bicycle Industry advert at the Bike Brno 2010 Expo and not a government campaign but hey... this is a brilliant start. And much needed in the Czech Republic. Prague is a black hole on the map regarding urban cycling. Bicycles are returning to the strangest cities these days, but Prag...

Great campaign from the City of Copenhagen earlier this year. The text reads, quite simply: "You won't believe it... You're safer on the bicycle than on the sofa!" Lack of daily exercise is harmful to your health, while physical activity keeps your body healthy. Cycling extends your life - daily excercise for minimum 30 minutes extends your life with up to five years." Not a campaign from the Traffic Dept. but rather the public health dept. On the website they state that: "With these posters Public Health Copenhagen hopes to place focus on the fact that there are very good reasons to ride a bicycle each day and we would like to highlight that Copenhageners already cycle 1.2 million km each day." Appropriate message in a city saturated with cycling. In Emerging Bicycle Cultures, it is always better to highlight the basic facts that appeal to homo sapiens, like A2Bism and quicker transport through our cities. With all that said, this is an...

Once in a while the issue of "bikes should pay" rises to the surface like bubbles of methane in Lake Kivu. In the UK, they're tackling it quite well with the I Pay Road Tax project . Several readers have sent links to Jonathan's post over at BikePortland so I figured I'd do a post about it. Regarding bike registration in Europe, there are half a billion citizens in the European Union alone. 100 million of them ride a bicycle for transport according to the European Cyclists' Federation . None of them are inconvenienced by bicycle licences, least of all the Netherlands or Denmark - the two countries with most bike usage. I posted about this ages ago and since then I've heard that a number of cities have actually calculated what the administrative costs would be. None of them have found that licensing bicycles was cost-efficient. Lately there is talk 'over there' about a symbolic appeasement fee. Cyclists paying a fee to get the motorists et al to sh...

A while back we posted about an Australian 'motoring helmet' designed to protect motorists' heads in car accidents. It was designed in the late 1980's. Then we recieved this tip yesterday. Another head protection device for motorists, this one developed at the University of Adelaide, in Australia. A serious product for the serious of protecting motorists from the dangers of driving. Despite airbags and seatbelts, motorists are victims of alarming head injury rates. Here's what the Centre for Automotive Safety Research [CASR] in Australia says: The Centre has been evaluating the concept of a protective headband for car occupants. In about 44 percent of cases of occupant head injury, a protective headband, such as the one illustrated, would have provided some benefit. One estimate has put the potential benefit of such a device (in terms of reduced societal Harm) as high as $380 million, compared with $123 million for padding the upper interior of the car. Thi...

I think it's safe to say that we have a pressing need for marketing cycling positively if we're to encourage people to ride bicycles and begin the transformation of our cities into more liveable places. Instead of scare campaigns about cycling [a life-extending, healthy, sustainable transport form], wouldn't it be more appropriate to begin campaigns about the dangers of automobiles? Many people in car-centric countries no longer regard cars as dangerous. Maybe they realise it, but the car is such an ingrained part of the culture that the perception of danger rarely rises to the surface of peoples consciousness. Sure, there are scare campaigns for cars out there, but what if we just cut to the chase? Much like smoking. Only a couple of decades ago, cigarettes were an integral part of life, whether you smoked or not. That has changed radically. We think that we could borrow freely from the health warnings now found on cigarette packs around the world. In order to be tho...

It is a constant and eternal hope for citizens of any nation that their politicians are fair, well-researched, thorough and rational. By and large, Danish democracy is refreshingly transparent. You can always come in direct contact with most MPs and corruption is non-existent. Politicians are accessible and with most of them you get the sense that they could be your neighbour. I've always felt that the down-to-earth feeling is a main reason that Danes take democracy so seriously. In national elections, over 80% vote and you can strike up engaging discussions with most people about politics. On occasion, mistakes are made. We're all homo sapiens after all. I was quite suprised to read that a member of parliament for one of the larger parties, Socialistisk Folkeparti [Socialist People's Party] actually proposed a helmet law for under 15's at a recent town hall traffic meeting . The member of parliament for the Socialist People's Party in question was one Anne Baastru...

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...

The fact that cycling is healthy is not a newsflash. However, as we highlighted in a previous post over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic , about why this city rides bikes so much, the majority of Copenhageners don't ride primarily to save the world or because they're health fanatics. According to the study: 54% ride because it is easy and fast . 19% ride because of the benefits of excercising. 7% ride because it is cheap. 6% ride because it is handy. 1% ride because of the environmental benefits. Nevertheless, the Copenhagen City Council - in their Biannual Cycle Report - had the consultancy company Trafitec rate the societal and health aspects of our bicycle culture. While these figures are specific to Copenhagen, based on our current levels of health and welfare, the results and stats are interesting nonetheless. Just the facts: - Physically active people live ca. 5 years longer than the physically inactive. - Physically inactive persons suffer on average for four more years from len...