The Life-Sized City Blog

So there you stand. The Gatekeeper. Tasked with defending the great bastion of Motordom and upholding a last-century codex about city planning and engineering. In your mind's eye you think you resemble THIS gatekeeper, but sorry... the fact is, you're more of the Keymaster type when you look in the mirror . But hey. Your job is important. Keeping the streets clear of irritating, squishy obstacles so that Motordom's armada can continue flowing freely. Don't worry about Ignoring the Bull . You ARE the bull and don't you forget it. What tools are at your disposal? What are the most effective ways to reverse 7000 years of city life and keep pedestrians out of the way, under control, under your greasy thumb, Gatekeeper? We've compiled a list for you. Adopt one or more of the following ideas in your city and declare proudly to the world that you are: A: Completely unwilling to take traffic safety seriously B: Ignorant of the existing Best Practice regarding ...

What you see in the above photo is a classic symptom of decades of car-centric planning. A wide, rounded corner that expedites the movment of cars, without jeopardising their speed. Wide sidewalks narrow at the corner, where bicycles are often parked. It is a prime example of The  Arrogance of Space . It's the corner of Gammel Kongevej and Skt. Jørgens Allé . It is possible that this corner was designed as such for the tramways of Copenhagen that operated in the city from 1884 to 1972, when one of the most destructive Lord Mayors in the history of Copenhagen (in an urban planning sense) - the ironically named Urban Hansen - killed them off. I've been unable to find out which tram route might have turned down this street at this intersection. Nevertheless, this corner remained unchanged ever since. I know this spot well. It's always been an irritating bottleneck, especially when walking with a baby carriage, as I did often when Felix was a baby. There is little need...

Yeah, so, there I was on summer holidays with the kids, standing atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Been there, done that many times before, but it's always a beautiful experience looking out over a beautiful city. If you're afraid of heights, the rule of thumb is "don't look down". When you work with liveable cities, transport and bicycle urbanism... it would seem that this rule applies as well. Don't look down. I did, however. I looked down at the intersection on Quai Branly where it meets Pont d'Iéna over the Seine. This is a place with easily hundreds of thousands of visitors every year and more and more cyclists. It is also clearly a place dominated by The Arrogance of Space of last century traffic engineering. It is a museum for failed, car-centric traffic planning - sad and amusing all at once. You may recall my earlier article about The Arrogance of Space in traffic planning . I talk a lot about it in my keynotes, this Arrogance of Space and I de...

Lulu-Sophia, who I called the World's Youngest Urbanist last year and who features in my recent TED x talk from Zurich constantly fires off simple and logical observations from the urban theatre. Yesterday we were out shopping on our cargo bike and we spotted these two red peppers that had presumably fallen off a bicycle. We chatted about them and then off we went. Lulu-Sophia was quiet for a moment and then said: "Daddy, I bet they'll get run over and squished." "I'm sure they will." "I think it'll be a car that runs them over." "Why?" "Because cars can't see them. Cyclists can see them but the people in cars can't." Ah, yes. Indeed. The interaction with the urban landscape is heightened on a bicycle or on foot. And motorists can't see shit. Lulu-Sophia's observations are always out of the blue, simple and poignant. Wonderful to see how she notices what goes on around her. Not long a...

Robert Doisneau - running pedestrians in Paris We recently covered the disturbing and archaeic 85th percentile method and how it is applied for (and by) vehicles. If you thought THAT was fun, you might also enjoy The 15th Percentile. It is frequently used to determine the time between the WALK and DON'T WALK crossing signals -  in other words, how much time the engineers computer models allow for human beings to cross streets. It's not as rooted as a standard as The 85th Percentile, but it is still widespread. In a nutshell, we should be paying more attention to pedestrian crossings, when you consider statistics that say that " 40% of accidents involving pedestrians occur at these intersections ". In Europe, one in four pedestrians die on a crossing . What seems to be the problem? In the U.S., the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) establishes a “normal” pedestrian speed at 1.2 metres per second (m/s), so traffic signal times are set according...