The Life-Sized City Blog

As I write this I'm in a vacuum-packed tube hurtling through the air high above the Canadian tundra, heading to Edmonton, Alberta to speak at the Winter Cities Shakeup conference . At this point I'm pleased to be vacuum-packed. That a few generations of designers and engineers have perfected the technology to allow me to avoid the -70 C temperature outside this Air Canada Airbus and to sip a coffee while writing this. I remain amazed that this is possible. Like Louis CK says, “ You're sitting in a chair in the sky! You're like a Greek myth right now. ” It's a unique and original angle for a conference, this Winter Cities Shakeup. Design and urbanism focused on life in winter cities. Loads of events during the three days of the conference. In a couple of weeks I'll be speaking at the Winter Cycling Conference in Leeuwarden, Netherlands . Another great, albeit more specific, angle for a conference. I started thinking about the Winter Cities Shakeup last ye...

Nice and simple. A welcome sight in the morning in Copenhagen. After a snowfall - most often during - the sidewalks and cycle tracks are cleared of snow, allowing for trouble-free mobility. Read more about winter maintenance: - The Snow Slinger - eating snow drifts for breakfast - Copenhagen runs out of salt - priortizes only cycle tracks . - Protecting Trees with Salt Guards - and keeping cycle tracks clear - The Ultimate Bike Lane Snow Clearance Blogpost

This winter has, so far, been rather uneventful. No arctic deep freeze with snowstorm after snowstorm rolling in like the past two winters and many before that . It's been grey and dull and quite boring, with only The Lakes being frozen over to provide a sense of winter and the opportunity to skate. Older people - including my dad - will wax lyrical about the three legendary winters back in 1939/40, 40/41 and 41/42. It was in 1941 that the municipality of Frederiksberg - where Copenhagenize Consulting is also based - needed some new ideas about clearing the obscene amounts of snow. Horse-drawn ploughs were in use all over the nation, as well as teams of men with shovels, due to the petrol shortage during those winters. Frode Nielsen, an engineer at the city's transport department, invented the bicycle snowplough picture above. It was made from two short john delivery bikes attached together with rods. The plough was made of beech, with a 3 mm steel edge, as well as sma...

One of the main focuses of this blog has always been on how Copenhagen and other cities have succeeded in increasing cycling levels by approaching the subject using mainstream marketing techniques. Tried and tested marketing that has existed since homo sapiens first started selling or trading stuff to each other. Modern bicycle advocacy, by and large, is flawed. It is firmly inspired by environmentalism which, in turn, is the greatest marketing flop in the history of humankind. Four decades of sub-cultural finger-wagging, guilt trips and preaching have given few results among the general population. When sub-cultural groups start trying to indoctrinate and convert the public, it rarely ever succeeds. For the better part of a century, people all over the planet rode bicycles because they were quick, easy, convenient and enjoyable. In hilly cities. In hot cities. In snowy cities. After the bicycle largely disappeared from the urban landscape because urban planning s...

Might just be me and my secret wish for nicer photography, but it seems that there is an increase in imagery in the Danish press featuring bicycles. Or rather, an increase in the quality of the imagery. I've noticed one national daily, Berlingske Tidende (founded 1749) upping their artistic sensibilities of late. Like the photo, above, taken in Aalborg yesterday morning. It's a simple article about the weather but it features a cyclist rolling on the bike lane in the snow (past all the cars on the road, of course). The temperature was about -10 C, with a wicked windchill. Then there was this weather article from late last year about rain and wind. Beautiful shot. Like all of these photos, showing cyclists adds a human element to the story. In a country like Denmark we can relate to the weather when we see a fellow citizen struggling through the elements on a bicycle. The same newspaper used to have Bicycle Weather included on their weather page in their print version. Showing...

Right off the bat we're going to link to a recent post featuring photos of cyclists in Copenhagen in the winter . Thanks to Eleanor for the following link. So... Hot of the virtual press of the Thunder Bay News Watch : "Cyclist hit by car. Transported to hospital". (We hope he is okay). Now the comments that often accompany bicycle-related stories in the Anglo-Saxon world are often entertaining and creative - as well as healthy, shocking reminders of the extent of our deeply-rooted car culture. The ones that follow this story are hilarious. Banning cycling in winter! Here are some of the nuggets of hilarity: The Wolf says: With all the laws new and old to protect people from themselves,why have they not made it illegal to operate a bike in the winter? The roads and conditions are hard enough to navigate in the winter never mind having to keep an eye out for someone on an unstable bike. nads74 says: I disagree, about making it a law, honestly why do we ne...

The thaw continues but the icy remants of the many snowstorms are useful on occasion.

We've had a period of "better" weather in Copenhagen, where the temperatures have hovered around freezing, including a couple of days of around 3 degrees. The snow, as snow does when the air is above zero - started to melt. It's still there but there is less of it. In some regions of the country the temperature rose to a tropical 7 degrees and the sudden thaw caused floods on farms and in houses. Fortunately, not so here in the capital. I was heading into the city centre yesterday and came across a bike lane snow sweepr muscling along the bike lane in the City of Frederiksber. The snow had long been cleared but not to the entire width of the bike lane. Now that the pressure is off city maintenence staff because of no recent snowfalls, there is time for the city to tidy up a bit and try to return to status quo. The snow sweeper was tackling the remaining snow and widening the bike lane to it's normal width. And it was nice to see the big boy out getting bu...

Sometimes it's easier to let the photos do the talking. As mentioned before, 80% of Copenhageners cycle through the winter. That number is surely lower when we have hard winters with snowstorm after snowstorm, but the numbers are still impressive. Impressive to me. Probably astounding to others. If you make the bicycle the fastest way to get from A to B in a city - what we call A2Bism for bicycles here at Copenhagenize - the strangest people will be spotted on bicycles. If you prioritize keeping your bicycle infrastructure clear of snow , people will ride. In most of these shots the temperature was well below zero. Much lower with the typical Copenhagen wind. And no bicycle studs were harmed in the making of this blogpost. I never see them here and wouldn't possibly know where to buy them. When you have as much urban cycling experience as the people of Copenhagen or a city like Amsterdam, you are pretty much trained to cycle in any weather. I'll just let my fellow ...