The Life-Sized City Blog

Copenhagen's Lord Mayor, Frank "Le Corbusier" Jensen continues his fight for a car-centric Copenhagen that would make the 1950s proud. What makes matters worse is that the Robert Moses Fan Club that is the Danish Congestion Commission (Trængselskommission) are also using a time machine to travel back to the congested past at the moment. A colleague told us very recently that they are seriously discussing widening the motorways leading into Copenhagen because of the traffic jams. Can you believe that? With all the available knowledge, with all the moves away from motorways around the world, these clowns are tying us to their back bumpers and dragging us into that previous century that exists in their heads. The subject of 30 km/h zones was brought up at the Congestion Commissions discussions. According to Jens Loft Rasmussen, head of the Danish Cycling Federation (DCF) , the room went kind of quiet. Nobody knew quite what to say. In a flash, the proposal was wip...

Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, spoke at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig today and he brought an interesting observation to the discussion. Millions of dollars are spent protecting frogs and lizards but pedestrians and cyclists often suffer from lack of infrastructure. It's a great comment. Ranking frogs higher than humans in our spending. What he is referring to is the many wildlife crossings that are built to protect wildlife and prevent wildlife/car conflicts. The most well-known examples are in Canada, providing safe passage for wildlife that wish to migrate across the Trans-Canada Highway: What an impressive, expensive structure. I'm pleased that the wildlife doesn't have to suffer the destructive capability of the automobile. Hell, they don't even have to suffer SEEING the cars because of the foliage. 30,000 cars a day pass this point in Banff National Park in the summer. Which, however, is a number similar to the number of cars ...

From a graphic design perspective, the above - sent to us by the Bristol Traffic team - is quite beautiful. The word 'Desire', and the chosen font, send positive signals and the map has strong graphic elements. And then you learn what it is. A map from 1965 taken out of a master plan by Scot & Wilson, Kirkpatric & Partners proposing the future of motorized traffic. At the bottom right it reads: " Desire lines of Traffic - 1990 ". It's a positive, glowing vision of the future of transport. This is apparently where 'Traffic' desired to go. The thick, coloured lines are motorways. Somewhere underneath is Glasgow. Bristol Traffic sent a link to this website - Report on a Highway Plan for Glasgow, 1965 - featuring the above map and other drawings, where excerpts of the plan can be read: "The very nature of this motorway will define the City into understand­able units each with its own identity and from this it will be possible for the c...

I was on a photo shoot for the Danish Cancer Society a couple of weeks ago. Cycling along the old defences of Copenhagen, taking pictures of recreational bicycle infrastructure. The Cancer Society is focusing a lot on cycling and exercise as preventative measures against cancer in this sedentary world. The route took me over a motorway section that I'd only ever driven over in a car. Sjællands Bridge, which is the main motorway if you're heading to Sweden from Denmark. Needless to say there is a wide cycle track over the bridge. There are fewer commuters on this route during the week, compared to parallel cycle tracks along other motorways leading into the city , but the weather was nice - 35 degrees - and there were many people going for bike rides. On either side of the bridge the bike route runs parallel but more separated by trees - it's a motorway for god's sake, who wants to ride next to it? - but above is a lovely detail. There is an overpass leading bicycles and...

Copenhagen has motorways, just like anywhere else. Being the capital city and the main metropolis in the region, all roads and railways lead to Copenhagen. The geographical layout of the city located on the sea resembles an outstretched palm with five fingers of infrastructure all funnelling towards the spot on the wrist where the pulse is found. There are two main motorways leading to the city from afar. The E20 brings traffic from the rest of the nation and the rest of Europe to the south. It continues on over the bridge to Sweden and on to Stockholm. The E47 sweeps down from the north, where ferries arrive from Sweden. Then there is a network of motorways that slice through the urban sprawl, bringing commuters into Copenhagen from different directions. I rode out along the #16 Motorway the other day and the film, above, is the result. The #16 isn't that long. It starts about 30 km out, deep in surburbia near the town of Hillerød. From it's source it is already a funnel for ...

One of life's necessary evils is a trip to Cheaptown - aka IKEA. Like everywhere else on the planet, IKEAs in Copenhagen are located in big box areas outside of the city. There are two within 10 km of our flat and I headed out to one of them to buy some boxes for my son's room. He has 15 kg of LEGO and when we redid his room we figured some stackable shoe boxes on the wall would be great for the LEGO. If we need some bigger things from IKEA, we will usually grab a car from our car share programme . But on a Saturday morning I hopped on the Bullitt cargo bike and headed off to get the boy his boxes. As you've probably gathered by now, there are separated bike lanes basically anywhere you want to go in Copenhagen. Even places you DON'T want to go, like IKEA. Here's a little photo series of my Tour de IKEA 2009. In the above photo an onramp leads to one of the main motorways into/out of Copenhagen. The bike lane I'm on continues down under the ramp, while the cars...