The Life-Sized City Blog

You see these warnings aimed at pedestrians in many places in Barcelona. It is, of course, a classic "Ignoring the Bull" tactic that places the responsibility wrongly on the vulnerable traffic users. I learned, however, something that wasn't THAT suprising. These warnings are sponsored by an automobile organisation and the city actually lets them paint them on the streets. There are no corresponding warnings for motorists. The warnings are sponsored by FIA Foundation - slogan: "For the Automobile & Society ". According to their website, the " FIA Foundation was established in 2001 with a donation of $300 million made by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the non-profit federation of motoring organisations and the governing body of world motor sport ". An automobile organisation promoting automobiles "for society" is a bit spooky. A well-funded one is downright scary. The FIA Foundation also spons...

The Mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania goes to war on cars parked illegally in bicycle lanes. Where can I vote for this guy?

You may recall the article we did last year about the railings and footrests for cyclists here in Copenhagen . The pilot project has proved so successful that the City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office is now placing 20 more around the city to add to the existing five. For no reason other than spoiling our cyclists and to thank them for cycling in the city. The footrests all feature the "Hej Cyklist" campaign that Copenhagenize Consulting developed for the Bicycle Office . Simple, friendly and encouraging texts like "Hi, cyclist! Rest your foot here and thanks for cycling in the city". I spotted one of the new ones the other day, pictured above. It reads, "Win a cargo bike. Send in a photo of a lovely bicycle moment". The railings make it easy to rest or lean at red lights. Which is something we do at every given opportunity. Lightposts are rubbed smooth from hands and feet seek out anything to lean up against. As you can see in this set on Flickr...

There was recently a consumer test of bicycle helmets in Denmark, performed by The Danish Consumer Council in their magazine Tænk (Think) . The test involved 15 different skater-style helmets. Two of the helmets failed in the test. One was Etto's "Psycho Street" and the other was Nutcase Helmet's "Street" model. The one with the very appropriate DANGER text on it. (The perfect text, by the way, to describe the helmet industry's eagerness to portray cycling as more dangerous as it is in the interest of profit.) Of the two helmets that flopped, Etto immediately called back the helmets in question and offer refunds to consumers. Nutcase Helmets, on the other hand, refused to react to the results of the test. They replied that their helmets met the demands in "their own tests". The head of the consumer tests, Niels Ebbe Jacobsen, says, " Nutcase is putting cyclists' safety on the line when they choose to keep their helmets on ...

The Danish Meterological Institute also serves the interests of our bicycle culture. They've done a spot of research regarding how likely it is for you to get wet on your daily commute. Important research for any true bicycle nation. Here's the rub, translated roughly from the DMI's article: Let's take a fictional person, let's call her Kassandra. Kassandra lives a little north of Copenhagen and rides every to work every day between 07:25 and 07:55 and back again between 15:35 and 16:05. Kassandra doesn't mind a little light showers, but if the intensity increases to over 0.4 mm over 30 minutes (light rain), then she thinks it is too wet. Kassandra works five days a week and has weekends and holidays free. That gives her 498 trips between September 2002 and the end of August 2003. How often does Kassandra get wet either to or from her job that year? The answer is, in fact, rarely. On those 498 trips it was only 17 times. That is only 3.5% or on average ...

Most regions have been experiencing climate change in various forms over the past few years. One of the changes we're experiencing here in Denmark is sudden and torrential rainstorms in the summer. Epic, tropical rainstorms. One of them hit last Saturday and the capital region recieved in two hours the normal rainfall we'd get over two months. It was, indeed, epic. I was at Bang & Jensen café in the Vesterbro neighbourhood and the storm was a spectator sport for those of us inside. It was a great atmosphere and we had a paper boat competition, setting our contraptions afloat in the street. Needless to say, none of us had cellars to worry about. I've never been so pleased to live on the fourth floor, although my kitchen floor was covered in a thin layer of water because of an open window. Over the past few years of these torrential downpours the talk afterwards is always about the massive cost to the insurance industry in payouts and about the hopeless run-off/se...

Just when you thought you'd seen it all in Copenhagen's bicycle culture... a bicycle used by a heron as a perch. This chap feeds the herons in Frederiksberg Gardens. It appears that he has trained them, despite them being wild, to some degree. They got spooked a couple of times and then used hand signals to get one up on the handlebars. He was trying to get one up on his knee, too. Speaking to them in low, calm tones. Fascinating to watch. You'll often see herons around the city. I took this a couple of years ago:

I was thinking about my previous post about why Montreal has changed my perception of Copenhagen . I like my neighbourhood in the city of Frederiksberg, which is a municipality surrounded by Copenhagen municipality on all sides. My kids go to school and kindergarten here and you always seen people you know when you walk or cycle around. It's a bit dull if you think about liveable streets, though, as are many neighbourhoods in Copenhagen. In many ways, the reason is, in part, architectural. A majority of of the blocks of flats in the neighbourhoods surrounding the ancient city centre were slapped up in tact with the industrial revolution. Late 1800's to early 1900's. To accomodate the rush of workers who were moving to the city. Fair enough. But have a look at the map below. View Larger Map At first glance, there is a lot of green. Looks nice. But notice all those squares that surround the green spots. Those are courtyards. Nice courtyards, renovated in most cases with playg...

Copenhagenize is pleased to be involved in the creation and design of a bike event that will take place in conjunction with the Roskilde Festival and Roskilde Municipality on June 26th, 2011. Rock Ur Bike will take place on Sunday, June 26th. Roskilde Festival starts on June 30th but the camping areas open on June 25th and warm up music starts on the Sunday, to entertain the tens of thousands of festival-goers. It is a simple celebration of the bicycle as an integral part of society. As the poster says, "Pimp your bike and ride show-off through the city!". The ride is inspired by the crazy bike goodness at Burning Man festival in the USA. Roskilde Festival, since its inception in 1971 , has become one of Europe's largest music festivals, with 80,000 people taking part, not to mention over 20,000 volunteers. The City of Roskilde is a bit older. A thousand years older, give or take. This year the city has a bicycle campaign to promote cycling called Roskilde ...

My son brought this home from school the other day. He showed it to be with a smile and said "Daddy... I think you better put this on your website..." Clever boy. By and large I have faith in the Danish education system. My boy goes to a good school and has brilliant teachers. Once in a while, however, they let people from the wrong side of the rationality tracks into the classroom. Without me, the parent, knowing about it or allowing me to choose if I want my children to particpate. Denmark is largely a secular nation. Only 7% attend church in Copenhagen. When my son started going to school, however, I was rather amazed to hear that they were led down the street to church on occasion. So much for separating church and state. Now, he let's me know when it will happen and I take him to the Zoological Museum or the Science Museum to talk about Darwin and/or science instead - when work allows me to. It's the same thing with this ridiculous reflective vest that was handed...