Infrastructure tour

Before going on a bike infrastructure hunt, we got to listen to a lecture from the director of Copenhagenize. Copenhagenize is a design company that works on bicycle design and planning. They have clients from cities all over the world and always use a human centered approach to design cities and make biking more accessible. We learned about the bike bridges, what percent of people bike to school and work and how people continue to bike in Copenhagen even in the winter months.

One aspect of bike infrastructure that I really liked is the circular bike parking in the neighborhoods. This makes it easier to fit more bikes into a smaller space. It’s also interesting because it looks more aesthetically pleasing from a design standpoint. Additionally, it’s an important part of biking in Copenhagen because there are so many bikes that they need places to go. Bike parking almost seems like more of an issue than car parking, as there are so many bikes everywhere and the sidewalks are so narrow. Not everyone is able to just leave their bike outside of a store front.

Another part of the bike infrastructure that’s helpful from an American viewpoint is filled in bike curbs. It sounds like something small, but it makes a really big difference. That way, as a biker, you don’t have to hop these large sidewalk curbs when getting onto the bike path. It’s safer and more convenient. I saw hundreds of different bikers using these during our infrastructure tour with Copenhagenize. The curbs are also easy to find because you see them all over the city.

Another good aspect of bike infrastructure is two way bike traffic. At first, it was intimidating having people fly right by you when biking, especially so close to you and going the opposite direction. But eventually I began to appreciate this because it is a fast and convenient way to move a lot of people through the city at once. This was especially helpful on the bike and pedestrian bridges. You can see a sign alerting people that bike traffic goes both ways in the photo below.

Lastly, another part of bike infrastructure I appreciated was all the pedestrian and bike bridges. We were told on our tour with Copenhagenize that thousands of people cross these bridges every day. Eugene has some of these, but I liked how in Copenhagen they are more common and also are a lot wider. You can see in the photo below that the bridge has two lanes for bike traffic, as well as a side for pedestrians. No cars are allowed on these bridges, and it’s also helpful because you know exactly where you need to be. It’s intuitive, even as a tourist from another country who doesn’t speak Danish. You don’t even need a sign to figure out where to go, just look at the markings on the bridge. I used bridges like this almost every day when biking around Copenhagen.

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