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...

This. Is. Brilliant. Once again, once again it's the Dutch who refuse to Ignore The Bull and choose instead to place the responsibility on the motorists. There is the External Airbags on Cars to protect cyclists and pedestrians and now there is this. Look at that film. Not only are there speed bumps in place to slow cars (and provide the cyclists with an even surface), the LED lights warn cars when bicycles are crossing. At the moment there are LED pedestrian crossings at some 20 locations in the Netherlands. In Papendrecht there is now a variation on a roundabout for cyclists as well. According to local authorities this is intended to be a sustainably safe roundabout because of the elevated bicycle and pedestrian crossings and islands. But apparently these measures were insufficient to ensure the safety of cyclists, so additional striking LED lighting was installed in the road surface. The manufacturer provided software made specifically for this location, which would e...