The Life-Sized City Blog

The Hungarians do it again. New advert for Bike to Workk campaign. As we've said before, the Hungarians are world champions in promoting cycling positively - check out this previous article about it . The message on this new one is, quite simply: "You can cure your lack of exercise. Bike to Work!" Cool style. Go, Hungary! Thanks to Aron at Hungarian Cycle Chic for the link.

Last week, on April 14, 2012, the first stretch of Copenhagen's new and long-awaited Bicycle Superhighway network opened and Copenhagenize was there for the bike ride. It was back in 2009 that we first wrote about the plans for these bicycle superhighways . The boys at Trunk films made this cool film that includes the Superhigways project . The project has taken time to develop but now the routes are getting ready for use. In addition, when we first wrote about it, there were plans for 13 routes. That has now been increased to 26. 300 km of dedicated superhighway routes when the project is complete. The 17.5 km Albertslund Route is the first one to launch. The route runs through a number of municipalities, including Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Albertslund and Rødovre. They are being called Bicycle Superhighways, but it's worth noting that the routes follow existing, separated bicycle infrastructure. There will be some improvements on certain sections and various faciliti...

Brilliantly simple and effective video about the societal costs of automobile use. Filled with nuggets of wisdom, effectively communicated. Love the bit about how cars are like gasses - it doesn't matter how large the container grows, the molecules will still occupy the whole space. Build more roads, more cars come. Welcome to Square One. Amazing how after 75 years of traffic engineers and planners failing constantly and consistently at solving traffic problems, we still give them outrageous amounts of funding to keep... failing. Seriously, what other vocation in the world gets so much money to play with without having produced ANY results for three quarters of a century? The Mexican office of the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) produced this film - in Spanish with English subtitles. Thanks to Ludwig from UITP for the link .

What IS it about Antwerp? Like I've been blogging about, it's quite a suprising city on so many levels. Here's another example. While many "bicycle enthusiasts" get all neo-sanctimonious about bicycles, let's see how "religious enthusiasts" use the bicycle. Oh, wait... they use it just like any other Citizen Cyclist.  The Muslim community in the Borgerhout neighourhood of Antwerp arranged a bike ride. Participants paid €2 to take part and the proceeds went to a school project in Kebdana, a village in Northern Morocco. They also hoped to promote better bicycle facilities and parking, as well as bringing all the different people in the community together. The Fietsersbond donated two bikes to Kebdana and two others to teach new arrivals from Morocco how to cycle. My friend Stef, from the Belgian NGO Fietsersbond.be took these shots a few weeks back. The ride went past six different mosques and it was promoted by the imams - top photo. ...

Oliver Green and his daughters. Photo: Courtesy of Oliver Green. UPDATE: MONDAY 02 APRIL 2012 Here's the latest update from Oliver: Last update before heading out for the Easter break. I finally received a call from the town hall - the Councilor for Safety from the ruling People's Party wants to meet with me together with the Head of the Municipal Police to discuss my complaint. They're gonna have to wait till after the holiday though as we're heading out later today. I had a productive meeting with David Cierco councilor and spokesperson for the local Socialist Party group in Pozuelo. Like the UPyD they too have cycling and bike lanes high on their agenda ( http://www.gmspozuelo.org/pozuelo-dinamico/ ) but is is very hard to get through in this town as the PP has had an absolute majority for the last 30 years... What I really found quite surprising was their claim that the PP in Spain is anti-bike because they see the car as progress and as central to their ...

I've returned home from after a brilliant journey to Brazil. It was a full programme and every moment was rewarding. Last year, in July 2011, I was invited by the City of Sao Paulo to speak about Copenhagenize Design Company's Four Goals for Promoting Urban Cycling. On that visit I had the opportunity to meet with the Secretary of Education for the city - Alexandre Schneider and his advisor Daniel Guth, who is the coordinator for the project. The Education Secretariat is responsible for the education of 1.2 million children in Sao Paulo. A mindboggling number. I pitched them the idea of placing bicycles in their schools as a way for the Education Secretariat to be the 'missing link' for childrens relationship to the bicycle. Most of them still learn to ride but their options for continuing to do so are limited because of lack of safe infrastructure and the explosive and continuing growth of car culture. I explained that bicycles have been on the curriculum in Dan...