Giffin Glastonbury Professor Marc Schlossberg Final Project 7/26/2023 Better Life Through Design Principles of Residential Urban Design Residential roads should be designed differently from arterial and connector roads because residential neighborhoods have very different needs from local and main thoroughfare streets. Street design can dramatically affect the quality of life for residents either …
Continue reading “The Intersection of Transportation and Urban Design.”
The Netherlands is often used as an uncompromising example of bike infrastructure. For this structured blog post I’ll pretend below as if I’m back in the US and describing my trip to a neighbor. (Pictures of neighborhood streets at the end.) Me. “I am very interested in some of the residential urban design’s I saw …
During my trip I’ve been documenting examples of trees within the urban landscape. I noticed that Amsterdam had a lot more trees and I felt a stronger presence of green spaces compared to Copenhagen. Yet, Copenhagen had the most open swimming of all the cities so far, Nijmegen and Utrecht seemed to be developing their …
During our stay in Amsterdam, my class visited Professor Merideth Glaser at the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Glaser lectured us on the various causes and consequences of Amsterdam’s urban design-and then set our class off onto a multi-day scavenger hunt exercise. The exercise was well designed to help us learn about and investigate into Amsterdam’s …
Now, I’ve had some time bicycling in both Denmark and the Netherlands, at least enough to see some differences and provide comparisons. The illustration below explains how a basic intersection might work in either of the countries systems. The bicycle lanes in the Netherlands if not pavers are very often a type of red painted …
Continue reading “What’s the differences between riding a bike in Copenhagen and Amsterdam?”
Our group landed in Amsterdam, today is our second full day here in the capital city. Some of my initial reactions that I’ve noticed about Amsterdam bicycle riders is they tend to ride based more on a flow, a feeling. Yielding more than stopping-a flow keeps its momentum. It is less always a strict rule …
A little less than an hour away by train from Copenhagen is Sweden! Here, is the smaller town of Malmo, closer in population to the size of Eugene. In Malmo, the bicycle ridership is closer to 20-%25 and the infrastructure system here relies on 2-way bicycle lanes. The system in Malmo is different from Copenhagen …
One thing that I noticed all across Copenhagen and frequently found in Malmo, Sweden was the use of raised intersections. (Our class is now in Malmo for 3 days before traveling to the Netherlands) The typology of a raised intersection allows for pedestrian and bicycle paths to cross an intersection while remaining at grade, while …
Continue reading “Raised Crosswalks and Intersections—Here, there, everywhere”
The city of Copenhagen has made a dramatic shift in how people get around the city over the last few decades. This bar graph (below) shows the Norrebrogade street redesign before and after. All the forms of transportation have dramatically improved… except for pedestrians. Around town, I’ve noticed the side walks are quite narrow at …
All over Copenhagen these steel bicycle foot rests and hand rails are located strategically near intersections. But what are they really for?The design of these steel framed units provide a foot rest or hand hold for about two bicyclists at signal intersections. At first they might seem unnecessary, or an over the top addition to …
Continue reading “The Real Purpose of the Bicycle Foot/Hand Rest at Intersections”