The Life-Sized City Blog

One of the most talked about intiatives in Copenhagen is now underway. Nørrebrogade is a main street running through a densely populated neighbourhood and it has had problems thriving for many years. Many of the side streets are lovely, cosy shopping streets but the main drag is dreary. It is the busiest bike stretch in the nation, with 30,000 cyclists each day. 10,000 cars a day make their way down the street towards the city centre, despite the fact that only about 35% of the locals own cars. Vice-Mayor Klaus Bondam secured a majority at City Hall for a radical project. Closing off the street to cars. It was meant to be a permanent project but he had to compromise and make it a 'test' for a period of three months. Here's a previous post about, after it was announced . This is also the stretch that features the Green Wave - cycle 20 km/h and hit green lights all the way. Anyway, the work has begun. I got a text message the other day from a friend who uses the route. He sa...

It is with absolute enthusiasm that I can highly recommend the book - Traffic - Why We Drive the Way We Do (and what it says about us) by Tom Vanderbilt. Carlton Reid over at Quickrelease.tv recommended it and I promptly ordered it from Amazon. I'm glad I did. It may not have been the author's intention, but I'm left with the sense that this is the greatest bicycle advocacy book ever written . It's all about cars and how motor vechicles affect those who drive them - or those who walk/ride next to them. Filled with references to countless studies and research, Traffic will make you think differently the next time you hop into a car. It also helps cyclists and pedestrian understand the intricate happenings in the heads of motorists. I've had a driving licence for about 25 years and enjoy driving. I don't do much of it now that I live in Copenhagen but on every single page of the book I found myself muttering an inner 'wow' or 'hmm'. So many peopl...

I don't wish to suggest that the cyclist above is a recent immigrant. She is probably born and raised here and can speak better Danish than me. The photo is for illustration only. Immigrants from an OECD country who move to Denmark face cultural and linguistic challenges, just as they would moving anywhere else. An Australian or a Spaniard moving here will have to adjust to the mentality of the Danes and try to learn the unintelligible language. For immigrants from other regions the challenges are often greater due to vastly diffent cultural norms. While an Australian or a Spaniard, as a rule, have probably learned to ride a bicycle in their childhood, many new arrivals from Arab countries or Africa have not. We've had many bicycle courses for immigrants over the years and learning to ride a bicycle is a great way to integrate in Danish society. You'll get up close and personal with your new fellow citizens on the bike lanes but you'll also be given the freedom of movem...

I actually saw this yesterday here in Copenhagen. In Denmark we have the Danish Pedestrians' Union [ Dansk Fodgænger Forbund ] who do everything they can to fight for the pedestrians rightful place in the traffic. I figured that with the current fanaticism coming out of the Danish Cyclists' Union , the Danish Traffic Safety Board and the Danish media at large, they would be interested in saving pedestrians' lives, too. It is the logical continuation of their ideology and lack of respect for science. So I asked the head of the Pedestrians' Union a couple of questions in an email interview: Question : I can see that the statistics show that pedestrians are at risk from head injury. I can also see that the Danish Traffic Safety Board and Danish Cyclists' Union are currently attempting to promote bike helmets. Does the Danish Pedestrians' Union have plans for promoting helmets for pedestrians so we can reduce the number of injuries in traffic? Pedestrians...

This chap is quite a character in Copenhagen. He's a passionate cyclist and Copenhagener and through his Cykel logisk Institut [Cycle-logical Institute] he has been campaigning for years for better cycling conditions for cyclists. Holger Rene Jørgensen is the name. His primary focus is on the development of traffic roofs - covering the main thoroughfares with glass roofs to create 'year-round' cycle and pedestrian streets. A simple idea, really. And so often the simple, obvious ideas never get off the ground. Such a shame. This is a typical street in Copenhagen. It's not hard to imagine a glass roof covering this stretch - just as an example of what Holger is aiming for. He has proposed covering the main stretches of city streets that have a heavy bike traffic and creating a covered network between prime locations such as the city centre and the university, as well as the neighbourhoods surrounding the centre. Not only would the roofs create fine cycling conditions in ...

Now THIS is how to promote cycling. No fear mongering from helmet advocates, just pure joy. Showing the facts about the health benefits of cycling without mentioning them. Absolutely brilliant advert from Hungary. Her bag reads, "Bike to Work." The dialogue goes like this: Lady: Would you like some tea? Man: Yes, that would be lovely, thanks. Telltale noises from the other side of the wall. Lady [muttering under her breath]: You should rather be biking, too, Rezso. The tagline at the end is "You should rather be biking, too..." With the Olympics in full swing I thought I'd post this little screen grab: We fancy our rowing in Denmark - mostly because we usually win medals - and watching the rowing I was fascinated by the long line of bicycles on shore, following the boats. So aesthetic - human powered boats dancing with human-powered bicycles. Here's a little addendum to a previous post about our Electric Boogie elderly/disabled citizens, happily humming abo...

I first met Ole last December, where he was selling coffee at the christmas party for Danish Broadcasting. I promptly blogged about his Coffee Bike . It was great to bump into him again on one of our main pedestrian streets in the heart of Copenhagen. Espressomanden - The Espresso Man as Ole is called - is gaining quite the reputation. He is busy being booked for receptions, weddings, company parties - basically anywhere groups of people congregate and need coffee. But he is also a recognisable figure on the streets of the city. It was a drizzly day so his umbrellas were up. Business is good, however, and since I first met him he has modified his coffee bike. He still uses a Sorte Jernhest cargo bike, mainly because it can carry 150 kg compared to 100 kg on other Danish cargo bike brands. He has a new coffee machine and a new set-up so he is completely mobile and doesn't need to think about finding an electricity outlet. He is totally mobilee is much more mobile now. If business ...

Copenhagen beach with offshore wind turbines in the background. The Danish Prime Minister said something the other day that you won't hear many other statesmen in OECD countries say: Namely that petrol prices need to be raised drastically in order to clear the way for environmentally-friendly technology and to free us from our dependence on oil. He was quoted in the New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman who met with the prime minister on a recent visit to Denmark. "I've observed that people in all other countries, including the USA, are complaining about rising gas prices. The cure isn't lowering prices, but instead we should raise them further in order to break our dependence from oil." "We will propose a new tax reform with an even higher tax on energy and the money raised from this will be used to lower the income tax - so we will strengthen the incentive to work and the incentive to save energy and develop sustainable energy sources" , said Anders Fo...

[Japanese porn film featuring a bicycle] There is one surefire sign that bicycles are hot at the moment. It's not the coverage urban cycling is getting on tv networks or in mainstream newspapers and fashion magazines. It's pornography. Increasing numbers of bicycle related porn films are being spotted on adult websites. You read it here first [but you probably noticed yourself, didn't you?] Once again, the adult film industry is a deciding factor in cultural and technological issues. [Screen grab from another, more recent film featuring bicycles and a 'cyclist'.] The adult film industry almost single-handedly killed of Beta in favour of VHS when they decided to back the latter format for the distribution of their films. Every time you view internet streaming and watch clips in the most popular formats, you can thank the porn industry for choosing them and therefore standardising how we view online content. The industry was a major factor in the rapid devel...

Rush hour in Copenhagen. For those who follow this blog it can hardly be a secret that we firmly believe that bicycle helmets should be a private matter and a personal choice - and that helmet promotion and legislation are the greatest threats to bicycle culture since the dawn of the automobile age. I had a discussion the other day with a friend from England regarding our campaign against helmet promotion here in Denmark on Cykelhjelm.org. We agreed that it's a weighty task and the message is a challenge to get across. There's all the science about what protection a helmet actually provides and then there's the whole societal issue about the effects of helmet promotion. We ended up agreeing on what the issue is all about. Our society here - and elsewhere - has a simple and important choice: What do we want for society as a whole? A. More people in bike helmets? B. More people on bikes? You can't have both as common sense and the existing data will suggest. For me B. is ...