The Life-Sized City Blog

By and large, we are optimists here at Copenhagenize Design Company. In our extensive travels around the world to our client cities and to give keynotes, we are privileged to see so many cities changing for the better and working to reestablish the bicycle as transport on the urban landscape. We get to work with great cities to help them make it happen. I've ridden bicycles in over 70 cities around the world with my work and while often the infrastruture is sensible, once in a while I am presented with weird stuff. Like the photo, above, taken in Washington, DC by our colleague Ole Kassow of Cycling Without Age . Initially, our team of planners and urban designers here at our Copenhagen office had a good laugh but then it sinks in. This is actually a thing. Someone was tasked with putting in bicycle infrastructure and THIS is what a city ended up with. Center-running lanes. Here's the rub. Best Practice in bicycle infrastructure is basically a century old. Dedicated bike pat...

With all the travelling I've been doing lately comes the fact that I have borrowed a number of different bikes. I often consider taking my Mobiky folding bike with me, but since I invariably meet up with readers or like-minded people, there always seem to be bikes nearby. On my recent visit to New York, Johnathan was amazingly kind enough to let me borrow his Bullitt TNT cargo bike from Larry vs Harry . Johnathan flew to Copenhagen earlier this year just to buy one and ship it home. He provided me with not only the bike but two locks, a pump, a map of the city and a tool kit. Totally brilliant. He cycles in cycling shoes so the only hitch was that I had to adjust to pedalling on clipless pedals in my regular shoes, but that was no big deal. It was amazing how many conversations I struck up with people when I rode around on the bike. I'm on the Manhattan Bridge, stopped to take some photos, and a couple of workers on the railway shouted at me to come over. They wanted to know a...

It's the new bicycle parking terminal outside Union Station in Washington, DC. Opening very soon, if not already. There'll be, if I recall correctly, parking for 150 bicycles, a shop/workshop, changing rooms for the cyclists who go too fast [:-)] and lockers. Outside of opening hours subscribers can gain access with a card. It's a useful and practical addition to the city but it's much, much more than that. Firstly, it's an eye-catching design. A little architectural monument. It sends many more signals than "see, I'm a pretty, modern building!" It sends signals to the city at large that the bicycle isn't really going anywhere. That the people riding bicycles you're seeing around town are here to stay. There may even be more on the way. Get used to it. It's an important visual landmark that with it's permanence is telling the citizens that bicycles are, and deserve to be, an accepted, respected and increasingly established transport for...