The Life-Sized City Blog

Photo by Dennis Steinsiek from Dutch-it.eu The news today out of Copenhagen is about the imminent failure of the city's new bike share system. Copenhageners are ignorning the bikes, few trips are being taken on them and they have become a tourist gimmick, not the commuter dream they hoped for. It's a rare event that a bike share system fails. Only a very few systems around the world have folded. Melbourne was the poster child for failure thanks to their helmet laws, helmet promotion, lack of infrastructure and anti-cyclist laws. Now it looks like Copenhagen will step into the failure spotlight. I am in two minds. I have never been a fan of the bikes or the system and have done little to conceal that fact. I said it was doomed to failure back in 2013 . I have wondered why Danish State Railways didn't just copy the decade-old OV-Fiets system from Dutch Railways instead of being seduced by useless, overcomplicated technology. You can read all about why I think the sys...

Mikael, on behalf of Copenhagenize Design Co., is a teacher in the Bicycle Urbanism Studio led by urban liveability expert Bianca Hermansen at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS). Since 1959, DIS has given American students the chance to study in Denmark. Our Bicycle Urbanism Studio features American architecture students. Mikael led a portion of the course involving a massive Desire Lines analysis of two intersections at either end of the Dybbøls Bridge in the Vesterbro neighbourhood, where the coming elevated cycle track - " Bicycle Snake – Cykelslangen"  - will be connected. Here's a map of the area in question . Working with the students - Anna Darling, David Mitchell, Jeannette Mundy, Elaine Stokes, Michelle Woods, Michelle Zucker, Ben Zünkeler - was brilliant and inspiring. Here is a  summary  of their studies. You can download here t he full report of the  Dybbølsbro's  Desire Lines analysis .  Meant as a companion docum...

There's an exciting new development underway on the north side of Copenhagen harbour. A boardwalk extending out into the water, designed by JDS Architects for the City of Copenhagen . The project is called Kalvebod Waves - named after the stretch of harbourfront, Kalvebod Brygge. When the harbour was decommissioned for commercial traffic over a decade ago, the City was keen to get development going. Unfortunately, they turned a blind eye to the projects that a number of developers proposed. The result is a stretch of waterfront that is so shockingly devoid of architectural creativity and urban spaces for humans that you'd think it was the mid-sixties all over again. It took a few years but the City realised that they had screwed up and, when a new City Architect took over the job, there was more focus on design and architecture rather than just building in a hurry. The only building that is actually interesting is the first one near the bridge Langebro. The Nyredit Bui...

"The Danish Congestion Commission is regarded, apparently, as a "good solution" as a plaster on the wound for the dropped congestion charge ring that would have reduced automobile traffic by 30%. A congestion ring that "nobody" allegedly wanted - except of course for a majority of Copenhageners who live with the pollution in a city that looks more and more like a parking lot with randomly scattered homes. We would have preferred that it looked more like a park with densely-populated neighbourhoods." Thus writes the newly-formed, Danish bicycle advocacy association Cykelrepublikken - The Bicycle Republic - on their website in a sharp criticism of the Congestion Commission. We've critised the Commission previously here on Copenhagenize but now their work is done and the documents handed in. Cue the anti-climax. The reports are disappointing and not a little shocking in their complete uselessness. Here is the translation of Cykelrepublikken's a...

The old-fashioned road interests are at it again and the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen, among others, are pandering to them. The insanity continues in The New Copenhagen. Now they want to build a tunnel for cars and trucks to connect the motorways that come from the north of Copenhagen and end in an area called Ryparken/Hans Knuds Square , to the motorway that connects the West of Zealand (the island on which Copenhagen is located) and the bridge to Sweden.  This motorway also accesses the Copenhagen airport. What is interesting is the development that this will no longer be called the "harbour tunnel", but will instead be called the "Eastern Bypass" - but that's just so that it can recieve funding from the national government. This will, however, mean that the tunnel may have to have more interchanges on its route than a pure bypass road would have, especially as it is being proposed as a "Public-Private Partnership", the investors in wh...

Goodbye, Bycyklen . After 17 years, Copenhagen's renowned bike share system is being pulled off the streets of the city for the winter - and it ain't coming back. As we all know, La Rochelle, France was the first city to establish a permanent bike share system back in the mid 1970s . Sure, there were some hippie attempts in the 1960s) but Copenhagen's Bycyklen was the first system in a large city that involved a deposit system. With a 10 or 20 kroner coin you could unlock a bike and ride off. Nostalgia strikes quickly. The goofiest bicycles in history have only been gone for a few hours but I already miss them. I miss being late for a meeting or just wanting to get home and having to trail behind a wobbly Italian family of four happily enjoying the cycle tracks. The entire width of them. Until we reached an intersection or a wider stretch and I - together with 150 other Copenhageners - could overtake them. I miss seeing them in the far reaches of the city - far fr...

Mogens Knudsen, Operativ leder i færdelspolitiet ved Københavns Politi There's a man in Copenhagen named Mogens. Mogens Knudsen. What's interesting about this man is that virtually every single day he goes to work he hurts and, in many situations, kills people. Indirectly, of course. What's more, Mogens actually gets paid to do so. He is a civil servant with a badge. A policeman. The head of the Traffic Dept in Copenhagen Police. Mogens is not particularly fond of those fellow citizens of his who ride bicycles in Copenhagen. He has for many years and has always been vocal about it. If Mogens seems scary, it gets worse. Mogens has colleagues who feel the same way and who also get paid to dish out injury and, in worst cases, death. Mogens and his colleagues make the Danish Road Safety Council's crusade against Danish bicycle culture look like piecemeal. Welcome to the Danish Police. Welcome to The New Copenhagen . By all accounts, Mogens and police seem to ...