The Life-Sized City Blog

I noticed this tiny detail on the urban landscape the other day. Outside the new university buildings on Karen Blixens Vej. I noticed it because I was heading up onto the sidewalk to park. Scanning the curb for the lowest point while cycling is one of those tiny bits and pieces of behavourial wayfinding that we never give much thought. On certain stretches on my regular routes I know exactly where the lowest point is so I can life the front wheel and bounce onto the sidewalk. Outside our corner shop, for example. Anyway, my subconscious scan revealed this ramped manhole and I used it. Seconds later, still rolling towards the bike racks, I realised that it wasn't a flaw. The streets are quite new outside these rather newish buildings. Yes, we still cobblestone wherever we can. Charm, character, tradition. I parked and went back to the manhole. It was simply designed this way in order for bicycles to get up onto the sidewalk more easily. Once again, it's in the details. Master pl...

It's another tiny detail that is all-important in marketing urban cycling for the masses as opposed to the minority. When the transformation of the now famous street Nørrebrogade [North Bridge Street] was being planned and implemented, I noticed a detail in the terminology used by the City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office. Nørrebrogade is not only the busiest bicyle street in the western world, it has also, over the past year or so, been a traffic planning showcase for how to recreate liveable neighbourhoods and prioritize bicycles, pedestrians and busses over cars. It was here the Green Wave for cyclists was implemented, regulating the traffic signals for bicycles so that if you cycle at 20 km/h you'll never put a foot down all the way into the city centre and home again. It was also here that cars were shunted away so that the neighbourhood would blossom once again. In places there are now bicycle lanes that are double as wide, after another lane was reclaimed from motori...

Recently the Danish State Railways [DSB] announced that bikes are now free on all the S-Trains in the Greater Copenhagen area. It was pretty big news here but DSB launched a comprehensive campaign to let the people know about it. On the busiest bicycle street in the western world, Nørrebrogade, they put up a mock S-train carriage on the bike lane. The morning bicycle rush hour on this street, which averages 38,000 cyclists a day, would find it hard to miss the advertising campaign. Whether people rode through the train tunnel or past it. On this stretch the bike lanes are double wide, around 5 metres. When the cyclists stopped at the red light up ahead, they were given a brochure about the fact that bikes are now free on the trains, as well as a free ticket for the train. Rather cool. Print adverts in a variety of themes about the new initiative feature prominently in the city these days. This advert on an outdoor ashtray, featuring beer glasses as wheels, reads: "Invite your bic...

Google launched their Street View service in Denmark a couple of days ago and there was one photo they enjoyed so much that they leaked it to the press in conjunction with the launch. The Street View van caught a cyclist taking a tumble outside of Vestergade 12 in the centre of the city. Shockingly, he wasn't wearing protective gear on his hands or arms. :-) " It's actually a funny story ", explained the head of Google's Danish office, Peter Friis to DR News . " He was riding along when he spotted the Street View car and he wanted to take a photo with his mobile phone and that's when he toppled over. " He explained that the man on the bicycle is a friend of one of the employees at Google Denmark and that he called his friend afterwards to tell him he was in the photo. " The man himself thinks it's a funny photo ", said Peter Friis. According to Friis it's pure coincedence that the episode was captured on camera. He stresses that t...

Ignoring the bull in society's china shop is nothing new. The Danish Road Safety Council have been protecting car culture since at least 1957. Above is their magazine called Watch Out! Inside the magazine there is even an advert for reflective clothing. "Cyclist and Pedestrian! Protect yourself and your children! Buy Pasma traffic safety clothing with reflective strips. These strips will warn cars and motorcycles of your presence at a distance of several hundred metres. Pasma clothes are available across the country. See demonstrations of the outerwear and trousers at your closest retailer." "One must be able to see the danger in order to avoid it. Therefore The Danish Road Safety Council recommends Pasma." You'd think that we would have learned a lot about traffic calming and reducing the danger that cars and motorists pose to pedestrians and cyclists in all the years since 1957. Alas, Bubble Wrap Society lives on and politicians continue to embrace the ...

Ah, the wonders of the internet. After having blogged this post about the Danish Army's Bicycle Battalions a while back, Jens sends me a link to this little youtube video about the history of them.

As it turns out, I didn't get my christmas wish fulfilled . 30 km/h zone for motor vehicles in Copenhagen. Maybe the package is still in the post, but it isn't looking good here in mid-January. Since wishing for 30 km/h zones - 20 km/h for school zones - there has been a bit of buzz about them. Barcelona is developing more 'Zones 30' based on positive results. A 27% reduction of accidents in one area of the city, for example. Amsterdam has proposed a similar scheme, too and the Dutch Fietsersbond advocates them. The list of cities and towns lowering the speed limits is growing across Europe week by week. In an inspired moment of excellent timing, The British Medical Journal published a paper about the effect of 20 mph traffic zones on road injuries in London. It was written by researchers at... The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine... which is strange, but hey. Effect of 20 mph traffic speed zones on road injuries in London, 1986-2006 Results:...

I noticed a little detail the other evening while I was out and about in a bit of a snowstorm. It was a Tuesday at about 21:00ish. Perhaps fewer cyclists than average, what with the snow and wind, but still many on the streets. Normally when a cluster or crowd of cyclists gather at a red light it doesn't take long for them to spread out once the light turns green. The different tempi of the different people means that the clusters are dispersed. In the heavy rush hour bicycle traffic it's a bit different. A larger school of fish swimming together. But in smaller groups it's more noticable. What I noticed that evening was that many cyclists were sticking together on many stretches of snowy bike lanes. Simply a variation of the Safety in Numbers concept. It's slippery so you slow down but sitting behind other cyclists perhaps makes it feel safer. The head of the pack carves a route and the other follow along. Unplanned and spontaneous. I doubt that drafting was the sub-co...

Pling. All of sudden this little bicycle-friendly detail showed up on the urban landscape in Copenhagen one day. I'm quite sure that very few people have noticed it, except for the people who roll up next to it. Which is the point, really. I'm talking about the railings that the man is holding onto and resting his foot on. It's located on a little traffic island on which cyclists who are heading straight on wait. The City of Copenhagen has implemented this double railing simply as a convenience for the cyclists who stop here. A high railing to grasp with your hand and a foot railing for putting your foot up, if that's what you fancy doing. Either way you can also use the railing to push off when the light changes. The foot rest reads: " Hi, cyclist! Rest your foot here... and thank you for cycling in the city. " Another example of the city using the 'Hi, cyclist!' behavourial campaign/communications template that I developed for them. It's a tiny ...

Intersection in a rural area of Northern Denmark. The fully separated bike lane next to the road, typical for areas like this, is visible on the right of the photo. A travel writer friend of mine, Tom Hall, has posted his account of his cycling tour of northern Denmark on his blog . Cycling in Denmark - Aalborg to Skagen . Fits well with the recent post about the national cycling routes and downloadable maps and all that . An excerpt about the national cycle network: " The result served as the blueprint for our own National Cycle Network – and is a boon for holidaymakers. It only goes wrong when you ignore it and attempt to build your own route visiting nearby places with silly-sounding names like Pajhede Skov and Uggerby. I learnt this to my cost mid-morning, when pondering that the bloke I was passing on my left hitting golf balls looked just like the bloke I’d passed twenty minutes ago on my right. He was the same chap. Lesson learnt: stick to the signed route. Chastened, I r...