The Life-Sized City Blog

I ventured into the city centre of Copenhagen for a night out yesterday and was thrilled to behold the new cycle track down Gothersgade. It's a one-way street for cars and bikes - until now. This stretch was a missing link for bicycle traffic. Bicycle users had to do a rather irritating detour to get to key destinations. Now a cycle track runs straight down the street towards the harbour while the street is still a one-way street for cars. Mary blogged about it a short while back - you can see what the street looked like before - and now the construction is almost complete. On some stretches The Arrogance of Space has been addressed by adding cycle tracks in both directions, like above. Narrowing the space for cars to create safer conditions. But what started as an article about bicycle infrastructure on a one-way street is now going to morph into an article about the deconstruction of The Arrogance of Space by using bicycle parking. Along stretches of the street, bike ra...

The area surrounding the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, is a labyrinth of construction as the City is renovating the on-street facilities and making it a nicer place. The result is that there is less space available so the City of Copenhagen has these signs up on Købmagergade, near the station. We are always thrilled to Copenhagenize Consulting's "Hej Cyklist" behavourial communication template in use. This campaign was developed for the City by the consultancy Atkins Danmark . It reads: Hej Cyclist! Can't you find your bicycle? It's now parked in Rosenborggade. In order to create space for everyone, we've drawn a bicycle parking zone here on Købmagergade. Bicycles parked outside the zone may be moved to the bicycle parking zone in Rosenborggade. They include a little map so you can find your bicycle. How lovely. Around the corner, here are the bicycles that have been moved. A cool design of the photo that combines the bicycles on th...

Photo: Theis Mortensen for Copenhagenize.com The City of Copenhagen in collaboration with Atkins Denmark have started testing Flex Parking zones in Copenhagen. Starting with the street outside Ingrid Jespersen's High School in Ndr. Frihavnsgade (that's a street name). We recieved info about the project from Niels Hoe-Svendsen from Atkins, formally in charge of the City of Copenhagen's bicycle parking. The primary goal is to create a safe environment for cycling to school. Many schools built at the turn of the last century in Copenhagen have space problems regarding bicycle parking in the school yards or on the street. Thus this new pilot project called Flex Parking. Flex Parking lets cycling citizens and motorists share street space. During school hours the street space is reserved for bicycles - from 07:00-17:00. The rest of the time it is reserved for car parking Instead of removing car parking spots and turning them into bicycle racks, the idea is to exploit t...

It's no secret that bicycles possess magnetic properties. I often play a little game like in these three photos from last weekend. Parking my bicycle in an unorthodox spot and watching it attract other bicycles. Small bicycle anthropology field studies. Last Friday I was out with a friend and we ended up - as we usually do - at a cool, tiny bar called Riesen. It was still early... about 1 AM. By chance there was a gap in the car parking on this side street and with a lack of space along the buildings, I happily parked my bicycle right there. Twenty minutes later, another bicycle appeared. After 2 AM the bars start getting busy. An hour later, when we left to go to another bar, this is how it looked. Five bicycles taking up the same space as one car. With space left over for more. The concept is, of course, well known. Copenhagen's parking zones are a prime example, as is this art project in the Netherlands .

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 .

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.

The City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office is currently testing a new bicycle parking idea at four locations in the city. Bike rack-less bike parking. In the hopes of getting people to, at the very least, stick their bicycles in one place, these bike parking zones have been painted on the ground. In Danish the text reads "Place your bicycle here". It's an unorthodox way to do things, but the City is keen to run some tests to see if it works. Students are monitoring the parking zones and, if they are successful in their function, they'll be implemented in other locations around the city. The all-important bicycle logo for the Bicycle Office - I bike Copenhagen (CPH) - is ever-present. Visual branding is paramount. Here is a later article about a Flex-parking solution on another Copenhagen street . The City of Amsterdam has tried out these parking zones and they were a big sucess. By all accounts it'll work here, too.