The Life-Sized City Blog

Location: Bygdøy Allé, Oslo // Photographer: Andreas Beer Wilse // Year: 1943 // Norwegian Folkemuseum Images of cities back when the bicycle was a normal transport form - as it was everywhere for decades.  The good people at the City of Oslo's Sykkelprosjektet (The Bicycle Project) - which is effectively Oslo's bicycle office - understand one of the main challenges facing us when trying to reestablish the bicycle as transport in our cities. The short-term memory of humans. Everywhere I travel with my work I hear the same thing - often from people who should know better. That urban cycling isn't possible "here". The usual myths about climate/topography are mentioned (and promptly busted) but also tales of how they have "never cycled here". Sigh. Luckily, intrepid followers of this blog started to delve into the local photo archives and a great many photos have been harvested and presented in this series from all over the world. Now it...

Originally published on July 2, 2014. Right this minute, right here in Copenhagen, what might be the greatest urban transport experiment in the world is well underway. It wasn't planned but it's working handsomely. Above is our simple traffic planning guide for liveable cities. Make cycling, walking and public transport the fastest way from A to B and make driving a pain in the ass and you have basically the most effective way to change the mobility paradigm for the better. It's that simple. All the campaigns for "ride a bike - it's good for you/it's green/it's healthy" are a complete waste of money if you don't follow the guide. This presupposes protected infrastructure for cycling, of course. Right now in the City of Copenhagen, a new Metro Ring is under construction. We're not fans of the Metro Ring. A city this size doesn't need a metro - it needs tramways like so many other cities in Europe. We don't advocate shoving cit...

Erik Griswold , one of our team members here at Copenhagenize, found some retro photos of Copenhagen. More specifically, Frederiksberg. Even more specifically, my front door. I promptly went out and took photos from the same angle. The couple of steps at the bottom right of the 1960s photo, below, are the main door to my building. Interesting to learn that back then I would have had the penthouse flat, because since then someone added some floors. What I find most interesting is the comparison of the two photos. While it is certainly true that road space and parking for cars were removed in Copenhagen to reestablish the bicycle infrastructure back in the early 1980s, it's plain to see that space - on certain streets - was reclaimed from other sources, as well. Look at the paving stones outside my door in the modern photo, at right. There's some asphalt and then two rows of paving stones. In the vintage photo, the sidewalk is four paving stones wide, narrowing a bit in ...

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...

Golly. What a lovely place to live. When I was in Ferrara, Italy a couple of weeks ago I was having a good chat with a colleague who works for the City. We were looking at a map of the city and he was filling me in about the various traffic and bicycle-friendly initiatives in place. For example, Ferrara doesn't have a congestion charge - it has a congestion BAN. Non-residents are not allowed to enter and goods transport must pay a fee. Eight cameras are installed around the city to photograph number plates. If you're caught in the city without a permit, you are fined €100. Ah, simplicity. Anyway, he was telling me about a main route through the city and plans to tackle the motorists who use it. He called them parasites . I thought it was a bit out of character for him but he kept using the word. Finally, I had to ask why he was using the word and he looked at me quizzically and said that it was simply the word they used. Parasites. First attested in English 1539, the w...