kencarsonbikerides

Throughout my study abroad experience of exploring sustainable transportation within Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, I’ve observed so many of the benefits that come with cycling. For this blog, I’m aiming to turn your attention towards the social & cultural connections associated with cycling.

When sitting in a car, you’re completely disconnected from the outside environment. Windows up with air conditioning on and radio blasting, you couldn’t be in more of a controlled environment. Unlike driving, cycling attaches you to the place your biking through. It forces individuals to be present, allowing for a much more intimate relationship between people and places.

One of the days in Utrecht, I spent about 15 minutes observing the busy street my hostel was located off of. I was hoping to see two individuals riding together on one bike. In the United States, we call this Dutch-style. About five minutes in I noticed a couple in their earlier twenties riding together. Then, I soon noticed to what I assume is an older brother riding his little brother home from school. Both of these moments are what I want to bring back to the states. They each represent another crucial aspect of the benefits cycling provides throughout one’s life.

1. Social Demand Creates Change – This can connect back to the lecture we had with Meredith Glazer at the University of Amsterdam. It was really important for myself to see how the cycling culture in the Netherlands actually made their first pivot to more sustainable and livable urban environments.
2. Cycling is a Tool for All Ages – It was so impressive to me the amount of diversity through age that was represented on bikes throughout the trip. Every time I would go out on a bike, I would see a multitude of children and their parents, young adults, and elderly couples all riding in the same fashion. This was a complete change up for myself when looking back to America where cyclists are majorly represented through young adult men. IMG_9364.HEIC
3. Keep Pushing for Policies – I believe this to be a quote made by Sjors van Duren during our ride along in the city of Nijmegen. He made multiple great points towards the idea that you can’t give up on livability. Whether that’s giving more than you take in a political sense that still offers safety and efficiency for cyclists, or attempting to pass a surplus amount of policies in hopes of getting at least one recognized by the government.
4. Car Drivers Ride Bikes Too – I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard this saying throughout the trip. It’s extremely crucial though, the fact that so many drivers are much more patient on the street to cyclist because they are one themself. The biggest disconnect in America between cars and bikes is the fact that they don’t recognize the significance of one another. In Europe, many streets were shared spaces that still felt safe to bike on. In the US, Im constantly checking behind me praying a car doesn’t come flying by.  its an absolute culture shock coming from such a car orientated country to such a place where bikes rule the road within the city. IMG_9322.HEIC
5. Without Trains / Buses There’s No Bikes – I wanted to add this simply for the fact of regional transportation. I think this is something that desperately needs to change within the US. Our main issue is the fact that our cities are so spaced out. It’s so inefficient to bike to the bus station and take it to a nearby town. In fact, it is probably 2-3 times more time to go from Beaverton to Portland by Train / Bike when compared to a car. This is so much different from the Netherlands, where traveling from city to city via train is roughly the same amount of time it would take you by car. IMG_8720.HEIC

By far, the most touristy action I participated in all trip was cycling with the entirety of my study abroad program through guided tours within Copenhagen and the Netherlands. For context, there was about 20 students on the trip, 4 professionals from Clackams County, 2 professors from the University of Oregon, and Ben our guide for the entire trip. Combine this with a single guide to lead us through whichever city we were in, it ws a very hectic and slow-paced ride pretty much every time.

Although these trips were quite enjoyable just because you can talk to just about anyone within the group, I was a bit overwhelmed when being inserted into the city where locals are actually cycling to go somewhere, when we are just cycling to cycle. By far, the most hectic of these rides can be given to none other than Bike Mike, a tour guide based in Copenhagen. I will never forget when as a group of 22 he let us know we are about to cross the most dangerous intersection in Copenhagen. The next second, he takes off. I try to follow but stop when I notice the cars to not budge at all seeing us try and cross the street at an unregulated crossing. I felt the wind of a Mercedes fly past the front of my body as Mike is continuing the venture across the street.

Enough about Bike Mike, I also wanna mention the weird faces we would all receive from whoever was trying to pass us at any given point. I can only assume the thoughts that were made about my group during our massive bike rides. All in all, I really appreciated these rides, as we were all together learning about each city in our own personal ways.

I wanted to create this blog after I took my first bike ride back in my hometown of Beaverton, Oregon. This is a city directly outside of Portland with a population size just shy of 100,000. This massively differs from Utrecht which holds about 375,000 within its city limits

To my intial surprise, it took relatively the same amount of time to bike to the major highway in Beaverton as it did to cycle to the ring road over in Utrecht. I soon came to realize it took the same amount of time because the district of downtown Beaverton is significantly less populated than the majority of Utrecht as a whole. This clearly also stems from americas point of view on transportation, in only deeming the car as the most viable option for moving around the Portland-Metro region. For me, its important to also note the fact that the highways for visibly much different from one another. In Beaverton, this highway cut directly in between urban developments, creating a massive cutout in the physically planned city.  While in Utrecht, the highway only separated a smaller populated place with green space on the other side. The main difference was that Utrecht’s highway felt to be at the edge of the city, whereas Beaverton’s can be seen to run right through it. Utrecht’s ring road also featured very well constructed sound barriers, where Beaverton simply has jersey barriers in place.

The most amazing aspect of my study abroad was the fact that rural communities within the Netherlands were connected through cycle highways. Our first day in Nijmegen, my program had the opportunity to be led on a group bike ride by Sjors van Duren, a cycling consultant who worked on many bike projects within the area over the last 30 years.

This had to of been one of my favorite guides of the entire trip, as he was able to give us a first-hand experience in what it takes to facilitate bicycle transportation in and out of the city. Our trip started in the city of Nijmegen and ended in a very rural area, between multiple surrounding villages and other small towns. Personally, the coolest part was the fact that through our 20-30 minutes biking to our rural destination via cycle highway, we passed multiple communities. It blew my mind how easy it felt to use the bike as a genuine tool for transportation when compared to the US.

Communities in the Netherlands are much denser than they are in America, which allows for the bicycle to be more efficient in means of transportation. So many people have asked what my favorite part of the trip was, and every time I give the same response. It’s the idea that communities are connected via cycling. I really appreciate the aspect of livability even through rural, non developed land.

I feel it is important for myself to start off this blog post with the simple saying of “Its not about cycling, it’s about safety”. In my opinion, I feel this quote can be strongly related to what my group came up with in a lecture provided by Meredith Glaser and the Urban Cycling Institute out of the University of Amsterdam. This quote was created by my good friend and teammate Owen, who stated social demand creates change.

As a group, we examined certain cause and effects of cycling in the Netherlands and how the culture so heavily evolved over time through social initiation. My first thoughts from Owen’s saying comes from the oil crisis and high children fatality rates associated with automobiles in the 1970s. Many parents believed streets to be unsafe for their children, and fought for complete streets. This is ultimately what led to the Netherlands incredibly massive protected regional bicycle infrastructure you can see nowadays.

One of the days my study abroad program spent in Malmo, Sweden involved visiting Vastra Hamnen. For some context, this is a modernistic district established in 2001 atop a former shipyard area alongside the city’s western harbor. I am aiming to use this exploration as an unstructured blog to simply represent my personal thoughts and feelings towards the design and feel of the neighborhood itself.

The meeting place for our group was located directly at the bottom of the Turning Torso, a 54 foot residential tower. Although I didn’t love the look of the building itself, I can easily admire the surrounding beach and its view. We met with a tour guide who led us from the tower to the harbor, about a five minute walk. She mentioned the fact that since the 1970s this district was zoned as industrial, mainly being used as a former shipyard. Once the decline of the shipbuilding industry came along with the economic crisis, this was an area relatively abandoned by the 1990s.

Our guide then walked us through the newly modernized neighborhood of Vastra Hamnen. An aspect of the city’s layout that really stuck with me was the fact that they surrounded lower density development with taller, more compact high rises. Due to the direct relationship between this neighborhood and Malmo’s western harbor, the taller structures protected the inner neighborhood from the strong wind forming from the ocean. It seemed to be an extremely effective strategy as I personally noticed little to no wind when being guided through Vastra Hamnen. I also want to give a section to appreciate the individuality of inner residential housing.

I was massively drawn to the ideology that the city didn’t care for the cheaper route when it came to hiring a single architect for the entire neighborhood. Our guide explained to my group about the fact that the city of Malmo purposely reached out to numerous architects with the vision of creating each household unique in its own way visually. I really appreciated this aspect. many US cities and suburbs tend to lean towards more affordable housing implementation methods, which isn’t a negative concept in any way I just think it can tend to look more dystopian or inorganic when compared to neighborhoods such as Vastra Hamnen.

 

 

 

 

I’m still amazed at how protected certain intersections were within the city of Amsterdam. I would arrive at a light and have the ability to either yield to on coming cyclists and take a right turn, or wait at the light and have the ability to cross over and still take a protected left turn. Although I honestly enjoyed the Copenhagen left, this felt so much safer for cyclists in my opinion. Especially when the city added left turn specific signals that allowed for myself and anyone else cycling to take a completely protected one point left turn.

The amount of protected infrastructure will continue to blow my mind for at least the next 25 years from now, especially when in the United States. It makes me wonder how long it will take the US to not only build protected bicycle infrastructure, but to have access to funds and ultimately establish a cycling social movement that has the ability to cause such a rise in multi-modal transportation within American cities. Of course, this has to come with a connection to public transportation as well. This is another topic the United States is already struggling with depending on the city or region you live in. I believe the implementation of a much stronger and more efficient inner city and regional train system has the ability to further connect cities while on bike. Although we are so far behind most of these European countries regarding cycling and public transportation infrastructure, I’m extremely curious as to how much we can catch up in the next fifty years. I wanted to add a photo of just one of the many protected intersections I biked through. IMG_9183

This post is a personal reflection of my time cycling and using the public transportation systems of Malmo. As a group, my study abroad program took two day trips from Copenhagen to Sweden as a way to explore other established bicycle infrastructure within Scandinavia. We also received a free day pass to explore the local BRT system in Malmo Express.

For the first day, we received bicycles as our sole form of transportation around the city. After using the local transit system, I would be happy to not rent a bicycle next time in Malmo.  I often caught myself cycling in the street or sidewalk instead of the two-way cycle tracks on the other side. Although tricky at first, I began to get a better understanding of how Malmo designed itself for cyclists. When on a tour in Malmo, our guide mentioned the fact that the commonly seen bi-directional bike lanes were established to provide a more convenient commute for cyclists.

For our second day trip to Malmo, my entire study abroad group received individual bus cards as our main method of transportation throughout the city. Before our required activity for the day, a friend and I decided to take the city bus #3 to Varnhems Falafel situated just outside the city center, in the southeast direction. The first thing I noticed when stepping on the bus was how clean everything appeared to be. I am not too familiar with taking public buses in the United States, but I can imagine the cleanliness to be drastically different from the public transit in Malmo. At the time we took the city bus, there weren’t too many people riding with us. I assume this was because majority of the city was working at this time. Other notable features on the bus can come in the form of standing sections or priority seating that allows for elderly individuals or one stop passengers to stand comfortably while waiting a short amount of time until their stop. I also appreciated the digital screens on the bus that highlighted each of the next few stops and when the bus is expected to arrive there.

If I were to take something back from Malmo to the United States, my main takeaway is a much deeper investment towards public transportation within local and regional areas. I’ve only seen one bus rapid transit system while spending my entire life in America, and it’s not even close to level of efficiency within the city of Malmo.

Again, I did a terrible job of adding photos throughout my time in Malmo. I did take a photo of the impressive underground bicycle parking found just outside Malmo’s central station. IMG_8883

 

For this blog, I was faced with the task of exploring three separate manned playgrounds operated by the City of Copenhagen. I had a few objectives in mind when creating this post. The first was to examine how children are arriving to these parks, as well as what they or their parents are typically doing when spending time in one of Copenhagens 26 manned playgrounds. Ultimately, I aimed to establish a further understanding towards the relationship of man operated playgrounds and the overall health, safety, & satisfaction of families within the City of Copenhagen.

The first park I discovered was part of one activity provided by GEO study abroad. Our entire group visited a traffic playground located inside of Faelledparken. This Featured an exact replica of the city streets commonly occurring within copenhagen, but designed to the scale of small children. This was a really cool concept, allowing for kids to learn how to maneuver their way around the city. It also allowed for no real risks relating to child cyclist safety regarding the busy nature of Copenhagens streets. Families entirely arrived to this park either on foot or bike. When entering the traffic garden, staff will rent a bike out free of charge to children who are wanting to learn how the city’s bike lanes function. Parents will often accompany their children on their own bikes, either side by side or patiently watching from behind. I noticed many parents to be talking their children through numerous intersections and roundabouts. It seems the parents themselves are the ones wanting to give their children the best opportunity for themselves when maneuvering around the city via cycling.

On an off day, two classmates and I decided to visit two other parks in hopes of gaining more knowledge towards the importance of these manned playgrounds. The first was titled the farm and construction playground located in Remiseparken. This was a much larger park than the previous. It featured a small zoo, a critter and bug exhibit, as well as multiple constructed buildings designed for children in mind. Again, from what I observed, almost every family was either cycling or walking to and from this manned playground. Every child I saw was accompanied with a chaperone.

The second park we explored was located in the heart of Vesterbro. This one was titled the “Parrot Playground”. I quickly understood the name when seeing a massive wooden parrot converted into a slide for children. This park seemed to involve much more foot traffic than the others. Although people were still cycling in, the amount of pedestrians arriving and departing seemed to heavily outweigh the cyclists.

I have been absolutely terrible with capturing photos of my experiences within this post. I want to add the two photos taken from my phone that day in hopes of showing you only a sliver of my time spent within the manned playgrounds of Copenhagen.IMG_8853.HEIC IMG_8856.HEIC