Today our class met with the CEO of Copenhagenize and former mayor of Copenhagen, Morten Kabell. He gave us a presentation on how Copenhagen’s city was overrun by cars in the 1950s and how they have shifted into a city where over 50% of its citizens bike every single day, even in the rain and snow. This took a lot of time and the demand of citizens to take their city back from cars and car parking. In the presentation, Morten showed us the infrastructure that they have placed to make this city bicycle friendly and then we had the pleasure of going on a bike tour with him to see it in person and ask questions. In this blog post I am going to post some pictures of some of this infrastructure and describe why it is an important piece to the urban form.

This photo shows multiple different types of infrastructures that make biking, walking, and public transit easier. This road only has two lanes of traffic, no street parking, and designated lane for the bus stop showing that the streets aren’t planned soley for moving as many cars as possible. The bike lane is raised higher than the road and the sidewalk is raised from the bike lane. This keeps cars from drifting into the bike lane and cyclist from going onto the sidewalk. The bus stop also is out on a island so people can enter and exit the bus without disrupting the bike lane. Bus riders can wait for the bike lane to clear to cross over to the sidewalk. Also in this picture is someone using a cargo bike, which you see all over Copenhagen. The cargo bike can be used to transport kids, people, dogs, and of course, cargo. This eliminates the need to drive if you need to pick up anything you can’t carry on a bike. We also learned today that even the blood banks and sperm banks use cargo bikes because it is actually faster than using a vehicle to transport. Morten also told us there is even a funeral cargo bike in Copenhagen that transports coffins! I would love one of these bikes to take my dog over to the dog park so I didn’t have to drive and get dog hair and mud in my car.

In this picture you can see a protected left turn lane for cyclist. Here in Copenhagen, the design for bike lanes are like mini streets for bikes. A lot of the bike lanes traffic signals just for cyclist. Riding a bike here reminds me of when I was a kid and went to safety town and rode around the streets of a mini city to learn the ways of a street. The bike lanes here don’t really feel like bike lanes, they feel like bike roads. In fact, Copenhagen bike lanes are usually at least 6 to 11 feet wide. Here you can bike safely with a buffer between you and the street.

This photo shows the standard raised bike lane and sidewalk buffers, but also has the buffer of parking between street traffic and cyclist to make it safer to bike. You can also see Sean safely signalling to stop while I take a picture on my phone while biking, not recommended.

Here Sean shows us this awesome piece of infrastructure for cyclist. At some intersections this foot rest and push bar is here to help cyclist get moving through the intersection faster when they get a green light. This isn’t just for comfort. When bike traffic is backed up it helps increase the speed of the bike traffic through the intersection, especially during rush hour, yes bike rush hour!

This is a bonus photo of Sean’s excitement for cargo bikes. Think of all the amazing things you could transport with these bikes!!!