The Life-Sized City Blog

Originally published on April 4, 2014 Like anyone interested in city life, we like to keep our eyes on the street life of our city. Currently however, the City of Copenhagen is planning to take some away from the street, by forcing people underground, with the 'M3 Cityringen' expansion of the Metro. Instead of investing in the reestablishment of our tram network - so rudely removed by the ironically-named mayor Urban Hansen in the 1970s - Copenhagen seems keen to get people off the street. This doesn’t come cheap: €3 billion gets you an additional 17 stations added to the existing Metro network. Some of the cost can be explained by the fact that  It is not easy to build a Metro in Copenhagen, a city that is on the whole scarcely above sea level, and with a dense urban fabric too.  It's due for completion in 2018, but that's later than the initial estimate and with the date still some way off who knows whether it will actually be ready by then - just ask the ...

This article is a guest contribution from Bartek Komorowski. Bartek is an urban planner and currently Project Leader in Research and Consulting at Vélo Quebec in Montreal . He and his colleagues reacted to a compartive study published last month in Canada and we're pleased to bring his thoughts here. Data is of utmost importance. More often than not, cities simply don't have enough of it. Then you have professionals who taken existing data and completely abuse it. Which is what this piece is about. ---- By Bartek Komorowski Last week, the Pembina Institute, a reputable clean energy think tank, released a comparative study on cycling in Canada’s five largest cities – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Ottawa. The study compares a number of statistics on bicycle use, safety, and infrastructure. The authors spin a narrative about Montreal being a great cycling city, mentioning its presence on the Copenhagenize Index. Strangely, their report provides statistics th...

Nice with a bit of activism and rationality on a Saturday. Thanks to our reader Jochen, who sent us some photos from the streets of Germany in reaction to a campaign from the German Ministry of Transport, above. Next to a photo of Darth Vader the text reads: "The saga continues, thanks to the helmet. Works in every galaxy. And on the bicycle." This set cyclists and activists to task. Billboard in Bonn: "Now I'm single... thanks, helmet." Photo: Jochen  In a country where only about 10% of cyclists wear plastic hats, the Ministry of Transport decided to chuck some taxpayer money into a campaign. A lazy move from politicans whose ignorance about the importance of encouraging cycling, building infrastructure and the health benefits of a cycling population has now been broadcast to the planet. They are basically using taxpayer money to advertise how ignorant they are. There's the first problem with their campaign. The choice of Darth Vader is as str...

Continuing in our series of Desire Line Analyses, we decided to cast our critical and curious eyes on yet another Copenhagen intersection, this time where Bremerholm meets Holmens Kanal. We decided to be more specific and focus on one part of the intersection - a location that we know well and one with a specific congestion problem in rush hour. We filmed for one hour from 08:15-09:15. Behaviour vs Design With the massive numbers of bicycle users in the mornings in Copenhagen, bottlenecks occur at a number of locations, particularly where many bicycle users need to turn left. This is something that all of us at the company experience each morning so we decided to study it. It was a November morning and it was party-cloudly, dry and 6 degrees C. The focus was to determine how bicycle users react to the sub-standard design of this location. How they react to having to battle with motorised traffic - something that is unusual in the city. Yep, even in Copenhagen, The Arroganc...

As  I highlight in this TED x Zurich talk of mine about Bicycle Culture by Design , Copenhagen has the world's best behaved cyclists. Bar none. I've cycled in close to 100 cities around the world and I've never seen anything that comes close. Citizens in any city do not - contrary to popular perception - wander around all day looking for laws to break. Wherever you happen to be reading this from, you're probably aware of the general perception of "those damned cyclists". Even here in Copenhagen, the perception persists, not least from the Copenhagen Police and  their one-man wrecking crew . They - and he - continue to spread personal perceptions about cycling citizens. 52% of the citizens in Copenhagen ride each day and most of the others have bikes that they use regularly. We are dealing with basically the entire population of a European city. The police are out of their league when it comes to behaviour perception. This perception is as old as the bi...

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Eco.ch conference in Basel last Friday. The theme was "Nature & Mobility - Increasing Mobility with Reduced Traffic". I gave a version of my Bicycle Urbanism by Design talk. One of the other speakers was particularly great to listen to. Adam Millard-Ball from the University of Santa Cruz spoke about Peak Traffic and the future of traffic demand. Future patterns of travel demand have enormous implications for energy supply and the environment. How far will we travel in the future, and by what modes? Has travel in the industrialized world ceased to grow – "peak travel"? Are developing countries likely to follow the high-travel, high-emissions path of the United States, or will their travel patterns look more like Europe or Japan? He highlighted how engineers and traffic modellers insist on using the same old same old techniques for predicting future travel demand patterns. Despite the fact that they are hopelessly wr...

It's no secret that I spend some of my time talking about how to promote cycling positively and built into that is, of course, the discussion of helmets. Those of you who have read this blog for a while are well versed in my opinions. And it's times like this I happily link to the first TED talk I've done . One of the points of in the discussion is risk compensation. The idea that if we have this perception of protection we become less risk adverse and push ourselves a little bit harder. It's a tough nut to crack. I've had discussions with intelligent friends were I've highlighted how most head injuries happen inside of cars - even with airbags and seat belts. I explain how an Australian government study suggested that motorists be made to wear head protection and I happily find photos of the motorist helmet developed by the University of Adelaide and Monash University on my smartphone to show them. More often than not, the people I speak with or interested ...

As the graphic above indicates, the potential for switching to bicycles and cargo bikes in European cities is impressive, according to a Cyclelogistics.eu baseline study. 51% of all motorised trips related to goods transport could realistically be done on bikes and cargo bikes. This is a good thing. Copenhagenize Design Company have been involved with the brilliant Cyclelogistics.eu project for two and a half years now. The project is aimed at promoting the use of cargo bikes in European cities. We've recently posted about our Shop by Bike campaign here in Copenhagen and for the past two and half years there have been great initiatives in all of our partner cities. Our partner in Graz, Austria - FGM Amor - have spearheaded a Cyclelogistics baseline study about how much of the the goods transport in a city could realistically be switched to cargo bikes and bicycles . In the above graphic you can see what the transport equation looks like in European cities. T...

One thing we've being going on about here at Copenhagenize for six years is the importance of promoting cycling positively to the great untapped well of potential cyclists. The 99%, if you will.   Two years ago, Copenhagenize informed you about a research project that was funded by the national bicycle fund entitled Effective Bicycle Promotion - Development of methodology to determine the effect on messages regarding marketing of bicycle traffic. We had teamed up with Thomas Krag Mobility Advice to investigate how promoting cycling with positive imagery was more beneficial than using images involving fear or perceived fear.  Two years on, the results of the study are in. Have a read. And now, more than ever before, endeavour to sell urban cycling to the 99% with positive messaging. Bicycle Marketing Messages: What Matters.  The report, collated by Sidsel Birk Hjuler and Thomas Krag, reveals some of the most important ingredients for the creation of ...