The Life-Sized City Blog

We've written about parking zones before. The City of Copenhagen has been testing painted zones in order to help people park a little less chaotic. It was tested in Amsterdam as well, and in both cities it seemed to work quite well. My friend Michiel from the Dutch Fietsersbond (Cycling Union) sent me the above film about a Dutch artist, Roosmarijn Vergouw, who created sculptures of parked bicycles using only tape and, in the process, discovered that people will park in the zones when they're there. She calls it Fietsenzwermen - Bicycle Swarm (I'm guessing). It's amazing to see how disciplined the cyclists became when there was tape on the ground. Vergouw now has an idea to do a similar project using spotlights. The City of Amsterdam's Bicycle Office is interested in hearing more. Here's a Dutch-language article about it in the Fietsersbond's magazine - opens as a .pdf .

How lovely and polite, this tag placed on a bicycle at Copenhagen International Airport. "Undesirable Bicycle Parking With respect for the free passage of passengers and the emergency services, we ask you to please place your bicycle in the established bicycle racks in the future." And on another part of the bicycle was this tag: "Is this bicycle in use? Remove this tag before 16.05.2010 so we can see that it is in use. Otherwise the bicycle will be removed by the police."

I spotted this around Nørreport metro station. A sign from the City of Copenhagen. The train and metro station are the busiest in the nation. This is, apparently, a rescue zone in case of an accident. The sign reads: Rescue Zone Is your bicycle gone? Maybe it's in the bike rack on Israel's Square. We moved it to be on the safe side. [or 'for the sake of safety'] I like the gentle, helpful tone. What a nice sign. The City moves bicycles a hundred metres away to a large bike rack on the nearby square so that the rescue zone is kept clear and they let you know where you can, perhaps, find it.