The Life-Sized City Blog

We have covered the historical aspects of Danish bicycle infrastructure before here on our blog , including the first cycle track in the world in 1892 on Esplanaden in Copenhagen. There is always space for more lessons from history. Above is a photo from Copenhagen in 1911. The streets along The Lakes in Copenhagen were the busiest for bicycles in the entire nation around the turn of the last century. The conditions for cyclists, however, left much to be desired. The swarms of cyclists only had a narrow edge of a riding path to use. The Danish Cyclists' Federation, founded in 1905, demanded a cycle track on the route. The city's horse riders refused to relinquish space. In an early example of the power of data related to traffic, a traffic count was done in 1909. It turned out that 9000 cyclists were counted each day, but only 18 horse riders. That changed the conversation. A three metre wide cycle track was put into place in 1911. It was bi-directional, as you can s...

The Bicycle as a symbol of progress, of renewal, of promising times ahead. This is not a new concept. Indeed it has been around since the invention of the bicycle. Many bicycle posters at end of the 19th century featured promising themes like liberation, progress, freedom. Here's an example: In this beautiful poster, there is a lot of metaphorical gameplay. The young woman is riding a bicycle to the future. Dressed in white and seemingly casting fresh flowers as though leaving a trail for us to follow. The old woman is looking backwards to the past as she sits in a bed of thorns, almost resigned to the fact that the future - the bicycle - is passing her by. When people in most cultures see art or photgraphy, our brain sees movement from left to right and interprets the piece based on that. The German historian and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim who wrote, among other books, " Art and visual perception – A psychology of the creative eye " noticed that the way many cult...

Buttons that pedestrians or cyclists are forced to push in order for a computer program - programmed by a car-centric engineer - to grant them authorisation to cross a street in their city have to be among the most archaeic remnants of a century of city planning that caters only to the automobile. And that was a long sentence. Sorry. I wish for their immediate demise. The only thing goofier is the pedestrian flags in some American cities . Talk about ignoring the bull . Not to mention engineering instead of designing our cities . One of the things I like most about cycling in Copenhagen is that I don't have to push any of these buttons. There have been a few but they tend to get removed and thank goodness for that. Here's one from the archives: (Although now I'll have to check if it's still there...) Still, they are a rarity here and I've only seen them at t-intersections. So why not signage like the graphic up top? If we're going to level the playi...

Photo by Jaime Dieppa from Citibici.es This sign is currently positioned along the City Hall in Copenhagen. It's from the City's DoT and Bicycle Office and uses the behavourial communcation template Copenhagenize Consulting developed a few years back. It reads: " Hi, Cyclist! Soon you'll be able to ride safe and secure along the City Hall Garden on a 2.80 metre wide cycle track with a curb. " This stretch along the City Hall is one of the few stretches of main streets left that doesn't have a separated cycle track. It's been a painted lane next to a bus lane, which is next to six lanes of traffic. So now it's getting redone so it adheres to the Best Practice in the rest of the city. And that 2.80 metre width is one way, of course. There are about 20,000 cyclists - in both directions - on this artery and making it safer will encourage more to use the route.

Internet nostalgia... remember those spam emails that flourished a while back (I'm sure they're still around) where the sender pretended to be the son/nephew/cousin of some African despot who had $10/$20/$30 million bucks in - as a rule - oil money but needed someone in the west to fence the money? Bikes are the new oil. Bikes are hot. First it was the adult entertainment industry and now it's the scammer-rama crowd. Check this out, recieved today at Larry vs Harry 's inbox: From: Collins Consults Date: 8. feb 2011 12.14.49 CET To: collins.abutu@yahoo.com Subject: SPORTS BIKE CONTRACT SUPPLY Dear sir, The Federal Ministry of Youth & Sports Development,Nigeria,wants a capable supplier to handle the supply of 30,000(Thirty-thousand) units of Sport bike project. Payment is 100% Telegraphic Transfer upon contract signing in advance before delivery. Therefore if you are interested and capable of handling the contract ,contact us as soon as possible...

One-Way - Cyclists Excepted The City of Copenhagen is currently working on some small but important changes on our cityscape that will make things a bit easier for the city's cyclists. There is a network of one-way streets in the city - both the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods - which is mostly directed at motorised traffic. In some instances the one-way restriction applies to bicycles. Not that it means much. Bicycles regularly follow these desire lines. The City is now tidying up and legitimising bicycle traffic in the opposite direction down one-way streets. This is, of course, the norm in many bicycle-friendly cities. From left: Vienna, Prague, Paris Here's an excerpt from the City of Copenhagen's press release: Small sign on the road - big help for cyclists It's not just bicycle bridges and massive intersection redesign that make the city better for cyclists. Often a simple sign or a small piece of bicycle lane can make things better ...

Turning right at red lights is not permitted in Denmark, like it is in many other countries, including Germany. I don't actually know why or when this law was put into place (hint: please tell me if you know). On occasion there are vague mumbles from the Danish bicycle advocacy wilderness about making it possible for bicycles to turn right at lights but little comes of it. Everytime I ride past this sign on Borups Allé I get a warm, fuzzy feeling. It reads No Right Turn (except bicycles). The warm, fuzzy feeling is often followed by a dismayed shake of the head, wondering why this isn't standard for bicycles throughout the Danish kingdom.

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."