On Sunday, under less than ideal circumstances in a lecture room in a hostel, our 17 courageous, amazing students presented to their classmates and other friends of the program about what they learned and what they want to carry home.  This class is such an inspirational experience as an instructor and guide for these students.  This year’s class included several students who were specializing in planning, architecture, and engineering. This group was different in that they’ve all taken classes in planning and have been exposed to ideas that challenge American transportation planning.  Even though they agreed with the concepts in the classroom, there’s nothing that can replace the experience of coming here and getting a bicycle in an independent setting.

In final presentations, students talked about how riding bikes in cities designed for them makes them happier, safer, more independent/ autonomous, and less anxious. One of our Scan Design Fellows (Robin Lewis from Bend) live blogged the presentations! They spoke about how planning around bicycles offers accessibility and helps reach sustainability goals, while giving people access to greenspace & recreation.   They connected their work to theoretical concepts like user-centered design and de-growth.  They spoke of specific aspects of infrastructure that make this work from planning for calm streets, microinfrastructure, public space, long distance routes, transit connections, and critical linkages like bicycle bridges. They talked about communication and education approaches to launch public education campaigns and to get children on bicycles.  I was impressed with how they married research with personal experience to offer insights into a topic that resonated with them over the last 4 weeks.  Over the coming weeks, the students will be writing up their final projects to carry their experiences back to the U.S. As with previous cohorts, I’m excited to see how this group of students harnesses this experience to make a difference in their communities and launch their careers to work towards better places that allow for these same amazing things we experienced.  These students are inspiring, resilient, and wicked smart – I can’t wait to see what they do with their knowledge and experience!

As I reflect on my own experience this trip, I’m left with different takeaways from the last class.  The key thoughts that I’m sitting with this time:  1) political will; 2) intentionality; 3) working across silos. Time and time again, our guest speakers remind us that the “issues” we face in the U.S. around taking away parking and fear of change are not all that different than what European cities are facing – even today, Copenhagen faces heated resistance to removing parking.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to political will. Second, achieving this world that makes us feel so safe, happy, and comfortable isn’t by accident – designers and planners make careful, intentional choices to prioritize bicycles and make things work.  Finally, making progress requires working across silos in both public space/transportation but also transportation/land use/housing. A few of our closing speakers reminded us about the role of land use planning in achieving densities that make cycling feasible.  Henk Swarttouw spoke a new housing development in the Netherlands prioritizing building bicycle infrastructure to make sure it’s present before people start developing habits around transportation.  This speaks to the need to integrate land use planning, housing construction, and transportation investments like Sweden is doing with the Sverigeforhandlingen. I’m inspired to write up and tell the story of this policy.

The Leaders of the 2022 trip!

Have you ever left a dense city and extremely busy train station and been cycling next to cows within minutes?  What a thrill! On Saturday morning, Nick and I rode a bike ferry (the coolest) to Noord to start a longer ride outside the city.  After getting a bit stuck in a couple of canals and parks thanks to my poor sense of direction, we were soon outside the A10 and plopped on the Netherlands National Cycling Routes.  We were also surrounded by cows and fields.  The A10 effectively serves as a growth boundary on the Northern edge and urban to rural transition is stark.  What makes it unique is how well-marked, integrated, and safe the rural cycling routes feel.  We were just on city bikes (without helmets) but we felt extremely safe on narrow off-road paths.  We meandered around the countryside and were at one point chased by cows who were running full speed along our bicycles.  Following the routes was easy and clear.  We got to ride a second low-tech ferry across another body of water that cost 25 cents each.

The cycling in Amsterdam is world-renowned and incredible, but this access to the countryside with safe and clear infrastructure is truly unmatched.  Denmark is working on their own cycling strategy, but it’s safe to say that the adage is true – The Netherlands is a cycling country while Copenhagen is a cycling city.

Our class starts in Denmark before moving to the Netherlands – as Marc describes it, this gives students a way to get used to an environment busy with cyclists that is predictable and easy-to-follow because space is clearly delineated and rules are generally followed.  We then move to the Netherlands where the cycling culture is “more evolved” as some describe it – where the cyclists now reign supreme over other vehicles.  Typically, we drop students right into Utrecht which is often ranked one of most cyclist friendly cities in the world and has some the busiest bicycle segments in the Netherlands (and world.) This year, students got a bit of warm up in Nijmegen. I really enjoyed seeing Nijmegen and surrounding areas to get a glimpse of what cycling culture is like in smaller cities.

Utrecht is a different experience entirely.  Like in Copenhagen, we give students bikes then ask them to follow a local in rush hour to observe customs and behavior around cycling.  What did we hear?  “It makes sense to me.” “Signals don’t seem to matter.” “We got to ride side by side!” and “It’s super scary!”  “They go so fast here!”  After this task, we met up with our Utrecht expert, Ronald Thamse, who offered some ideas into why things might seem different here including “Welcome to the Netherlands. Don’t tell us what to do,” and that people tend to ignore rules if better for themselves. He also reminded us of the concept of social cycling. They design cycle paths to be at least 3 meters wide to allow friends to cycle side by side while allowing another to pass. Two-way cycle paths are at least 4 meters wide.

This concept of social cycling was something I missed dearly since my last trip to the Netherlands and something I embraced again.  Roaming around on a bicycle, I would see friends cycling side by side, grandparents next to grandchildren, families together, and school children 2×2 catching up on the day before.  On Saturday, Nick and I chose our lunch restaurant on a busy fietstraat (bicycle street) where we could watch bicycle traffic.  It provided endless happiness!

I vividly remember riding side-by-side with my friend Meg in Florida on a road bike ride early morning and getting harassed by drivers then law enforcement who told us it was “illegal to ride side by side.” In fact, it wasn’t as she wrote to the local paper in an op-ed later.  But, this contrast reminds me of the extreme differences in cycling culture in the U.S. v. the Netherlands. In the U.S, you’re supposed to be shoved to the side out of the way of the vehicles, even if it’s unsafe, even if you want to have a conversation, even though you’re still taking up less room than the vehicles.  In the Netherlands, they consider the social aspect of cycling so that you can take meetings and have chats side-by-side with friends.  Moreover, the bicycle is at the top of the pyramid.  (That means that pedestrians, transit users, and drivers cede to the bicycle – there is a clear king here.)  It took 40 years for Utrecht to get here, but it’s miraculous to experience and it inspires so much comfort, safety, and happiness from the cycle.

Odense is approximately 200k in population with 30k college students, making it similar in size and student demographics to Eugene. After our long bike rides, we went straight into a meeting with city traffic planner Connie Juel Clausen.  She gave us an enthusiastic and impassioned overview of the recent investments in the city including:

• A new cycling bridge over the train tracks into the redeveloping harbor area
• A new tram line that opened 1 month ago, connecting city center to the university
• Removing a freeway from the city center, which allowed for a large mass of land to be repurposed into housing, space for bicycles, and space for the tram. This also allowed the city to reconnect the shopping district and the museum district.
• Investing in cycling superhighways to the outskirts of the city.

Tram and new public square (freeway removed)

New development in space from removed freeway

New cycling bridge over train tracks to harbor

Redesigned street and public square (from cars to tram lines)

In addition to physical improvements, we heard about the campaigns to encourage cycling including:

• Cargo bikes to borrow from businesses
• Cargo bikes for kindergartens
• Cycle play to teach kids to bike and to enjoy cycling
• Cycle Happy School to encourage classes to take bicycles to museums, swimming pools, and have mobile classes
• Traffic gardens at several schools (instead of the one in Copenhagen)

The city is continuing to work to make the city more attractive to college students and families.  The city is engaging the water and the harbor to activate the space. The college campus is large, but disconnected from the city center so students commute from Copenhagen by train and tram rather than moving to Odense.  We took the tram to the campus on Sunday, and it definitely had a deserted, eerie feeling.  There were several new-looking buildings but no restaurants, cafes, or housing closeby.

University buildings with bike path & tram

Odense definitely has a different feel than Copenhagen – it’s less dense with fewer people, so the bicycle lanes aren’t as packed.  There are more single family homes and more cars throughout the city.  The crosswalks all have pedestrian “beg buttons” requiring you to wait for the light to turn to cross the street. The bicycle infrastructure is extensive and well integrated.  It feels pretty comfortable to get around the city by bike (though I’ve been geographically confused a few times.)

I love visiting mid-sized cities because it’s inspiring to see how cities of this size invest in big projects to improve communities for people.  I see many parallels to Eugene in terms of opportunity and inspiration as the city reconfigures Franklin Blvd and pursues EWEB redevelopment – these projects have been in the works for several years. Franklin Blvd has roughly the same traffic volume as the freeway the city of Odense removed from city center.

We’ve been visiting several mid-sized Scandinavian cities, and I’ve been impressed by the large-scale redevelopment of industrial areas in city centers.  How are they getting things done so quickly when we struggle in the U.S. to get such massive projects off the ground? The level of housing construction and focus on making quality places in these defunct industrial areas is impressive.  While the focus of my research was on one particular housing/infrastructure policy in Sweden, I’ve been interested in understanding what makes housing construction more feasible in these countries. As I mentioned in a previous post about my sabbatical research, the systems for planning and housing are more similar than different.

Rasmus Duong-Grunnet (Gehl) said this on our cycling tour of the bicycle snake in Copenhagen.  The point is – if you don’t make it work and make it easy for people to use – they won’t, or they’ll do something outside of the intent of the designer. Relatedly, bikes need to be able to connect effortlessly and decisions must be made to make the bicycle the preferred mode of arrival rather than an afterthought.

In both the Gehl and Copenhagenize lectures, I was struck by the concept of adapting infrastructure for human nature.  This concept is common in thinking about “desire lines” – or where people walk on paths when the provided option isn’t intuitive.  But they gave a few examples of watching human behavior and adapting the infrastructure to suit it, even if it is not in alignment with design guidelines.  James at Copenhagenize gave an example of bicycle slip lane that helps people commute from the north side of town to work downtown.  They noticed the behavior, put in a pilot to study it, then made changes in line with the observed behavior to relieve the pinch point in the commute.

Both Andreas and James mentioned how important pilots are for getting support when there are critics and skeptics. James joked that it was even easier when you do pilots in the summer when everyone is on vacation!  Overall though, it’s important to measure the before and after to be able to communicate the results.

The approach to study and make changes seems to reflect Danish sensibility – they use guidelines but don’t make rules unless needed.  As long as people treat areas with respect, they’ll let you do it. But if something becomes a problem, they’ll make new rules about it.  This extends to the design of the roadways – the Danish approach is simple; it’s not over-engineered with a ton of paint or specialized signals. In Copenhagen, they follow a typology that takes into account how many cars and how fast.  When the cars are <10 mph, it’s a shared space.  When cars are 20 mph, they use painted lanes and parking protection.  Faster, they use the most common design – the curb separated cycle track so it’s clear where you belong.  The use very few signs but use design to make it clear.  Finally, when cars are over 50 mph, they use a buffered bicycle track with a barrier or a fence so the modes never cross. In addition, they use traffic calming to signal how fast cars should be going. I appreciated something James said about bikes – they’re fast moving pedestrians, not cars. We wouldn’t tell pedestrians to “share the road” and walk down a car busy with streets, and we shouldn’t tell bicycles to do that either.

A few design features that were fun to hear about and see in action:

• Designated cyclist phases with the pedestrians – have different stop bars to pull the bikes out of the cyclists blindspots. Bikes aren’t a big threat to pedestrians so they don’t need a separate phase.
• Use bike boxes to facilitate bunching and let bikes get through an intersection. Can get 100 bikes through in 45 seconds; probably 6 cars
• Small elements of design – like making cars come up to level of pedestrians instead of making pedestrians come down into the space of cars which is harder to see.

Stop bar ahead of cars to protect people riding bikes

Painting bicycle markings only at crossings

Beautiful calm street

Curb protected infrastructure

Bunching to get through lights

When kids learn to play while riding a bike, it becomes part of your body.  Even though the traffic garden is designed like a city, it’s not necessarily about teaching rules.  Once they know how to ride and are comfortable on a bike, the parents are responsible for teaching the rules. The Danish Cyclist Federation developed several games for kids to play on a bike.  The most important thing is exposing kids to bike culture early and making it fun.

The playgrounds

In the 1970s-1980s, Denmark realized that families were leaving the city and made a conscious effort to improve spaces for families.  This included investing in improving inner courtyards, investing in kindergartens, and creating playgrounds.  One unique thing about Copenhagen is the prevalence of staffed playgrounds.

Overall, their playgrounds are less focused on risk and more on teaching the kids about various subjects like construction, farming, or traffic… and about building structures that help them be independent and test their limits. This goes in line with the Scandinavian approach to schooling which focuses on teaching small children to be humans and interact with others through play-based learning and doesn’t start teaching reading & math until age 7.

This level of play extends around the city in small and random places – there are tiny play structures all over and trampolines right next to the harbor.

Trampolines by harbor

Traffic Playground

The parks

There are many great parks all around the city.  From the flowery manicured Kings Garden to the lush, lake centered Orstedsparken to Superkilen and Norrebroparken, there is lots of variation. There seems to be something for everyone (who likes being outside!) and a focus on creating parks that reflect what people in the neighborhood want. We learned more about the unique design of Superkilen on our Copenhagenize Tour – the park was designed to reflect the multicultural neighborhood from the three major colors (red, green, and black) representing Palestine to the different playground equipment reflecting different countries.

Park in Nordhaven (on roof of parking structure)

Orstedsparken

King’s Garden

Superkilen

Adult playgrounds

Thanks to humid, warm temperatures, we’ve fully embraced dock and harbor bath culture.  European parks are well-known for being full of people hanging out on blankets.  Parks and swimming areas can create “third-spaces” for people outside of their homes and work.  Even better – these spaces are free and open the public. The engagement with the water in Copenhagen is so amazing.  There are lots of official harbor baths, some with intricate diving structures or built in swimming lanes.  There are also just low-cost wooden stepped docks where you can grab some snacks and drinks and hang out with your friends.  The water is clean because the city moved the industry from the center of the city and made the “largest swimming pool” in the center of the city.  As Andreas mentioned, local destinations are the key to transformation of Copenhagen – also a climate strategy because it reduces the number and volume of people driving out of town to the beach.   It’s about biking to and from work, but also other places people want to go and be.   In both considering families and recreation, Copenhagen acknowledges that people are leaving the city and makes changes to make cities nicer.  I always daydream about Springfield or Eugene having more formal swimming areas along the Willamette, or ice cream or coffee stands near the river.

Harbor swimming area

Copenhill – ski slope on a waste-to-energy facility

A common refrain about Europe is that “it’s always been this way,” and that the “culture is different,” or the “city design is different.”  This notion has been written about and debunked by many ex-pats living in bicycle-friendly cities.

When you’re visiting Copenhagen, you notice that the city is vibrant, well-functioning and easy to get around.  But it wasn’t by accident and it wasn’t necessarily because of historic design or a “different culture.”  When big changes (like pedestrian streets) were proposed in Copenhagen, many thought they would fail because of the weather and culture, but they were hugely successful.

Many of the aspects of good design are subtle – you don’t notice them if you’re a regular resident going about your daily life.  But you’d notice if they were missing or if it was harder to get around.  For example, have you ever had to carry your trash around because there aren’t strategically places trash cans around the city?

As we’ve been living in Scandinavia, we’ve come to appreciate these subtle elements of city design that just make things nicer and smoother. In attending lectures, I’ve been struck by how conscious many of these decisions were.  The work of Gehl observes human behavior, measures it, and offers strategic visions for planning cities for people.

Some other examples I noticed:

• If we want people to bike, we make it the fastest, easiest and safest way to get around. Bike parking should be close and easy. Taking a car should be a bit more difficult. Instead of having cars parked directly outside of homes, Copenhagen uses centralized parking hubs that require walking across a quad to get to the car.  That makes it less enticing to use for short trips.  In this example, it also gets people to walk through shared public space which activates community interaction.
• If we don’t want people to drive out of the city to recreate at beaches, we clean up the harbor by removing industry and combined sewage overflow into the harbor, and we create nice places for people to enjoy the water. This makes it possible for people to bike and walk to swimming areas after work.
• In studying urban space, Gehl realized that buildings that 5-6 stories are ideal for urban life – people interact with public space. If they live in taller buildings, they live in the sky and don’t interact with public space. This level of density is similar in Paris, Copenhagen, Malmö and many other cities. After living in this level of density, I agree that it’s ideal – it’s dense enough to have a population to support neighborhood scale retail but can still be quiet and calm without the feel of a huge city.
• In redevelopment areas like Nordhaven, city plans integrate the concepts that work well in other parts of the city for new development. The height is mostly 5-6 stories except some landmark pre-existing buildings. Parking is in hubs rather than adjacent to homes. The concept is based on an idea of a 5-minute neighborhood, but the shops are local rather than large international chains.

Nordhaven – playground on top of parking garage

Nordhaven – side of parking garage with greenspace

Ideal density (and lovely garden!)

Islands Brygge Swimming Area in Harbor

I’ve been struck by how the forces that make these decisions difficult are the same as we face in U.S. cities.  People fight for street parking, existing residents are against new development, and everyone is against change.  But these cities have the political will to overcome these forces of change and make a conscious choice to take a different path.  Andreas’ advice about navigating the political realm, forming relationships across siloes (at a local level and across levels of government) really resonated with me.  To overcome these issues, it’s not just about trying to get them to care about climate change – it also has to be communicated related to quality of life, air pollution, and noise. And most of all, you can’t convince people to ride bikes if the network isn’t well-connected, and it isn’t easy and fast to do so.

As we settled into the week, we built up to several different lectures with professionals at the city, consulting firms, and conversations with local residents. We visited many of the same places in 2019, but with different presenters.  After 4 months in Sweden, 2 years of pandemic, and rapidly accelerating impacts of climate change, I’m taking away different messages than my first trip 3 years ago.

Jan Gehl is famous for the concept of cities for people rather than buildings and thinking about the life and space between buildings.  His work has integrated the concepts of mobility and public space and the disciplines of design and engineering. The firm focuses on strategy, vision and conceptual design more than the technical details.   Andreas Røhl was formerly the director of cycling strategy for the city of Copenhagen and spent a year in Vancouver as well. He has expertise in the political and technical aspects of making cities for people.

Some quotes that resonated with me that reflect the theory of cities for people and the politics of getting there:

Politics

• “It’s the politicians who make tough decisions – as a planner and designer, your job is to argue in a fair and good way”
• “Politicians are busy, so they need public servants who interpret mandated in a broad way. Think strategically about what is on the agenda (tourism, kids, climate, health, obesity) – how do you tie it to the local agenda. Measure and report.”
• “Approaches should be holistic not siloed. You have to spend lots of time to develop relationships. You can’t just create a new city department – the relationship building is important.”
• “You need political stamina to implement and carry through. Make sure you get policies and practices institutionalized.”
• “All projects are communication projects. If staff don’t think like this, you run into problems.”

Technical  – mobility and public space

• “You should specialize in car parking. Nothing is more emotional. It’s the dark matter of urban planning.”
• “Streets are too important as a living space in the city to cede the entire space to cars.”
• “Places should be more than one thing” — this is evident from something like Copenhilll which processes trash,  creates energy, and serves as a recreation facility.
• “How can you use a bike as a tool to rethink space”
• “What you focus on is what you get” – cars, biking and walking
• “Don’t make the whole thing for rich people. Conserve the diversity that makes cities dynamic and interesting.”
• “Being on a bike is not a political statement. Lower the entry barrier.”
• “You have to work towards a continuous journey through the city in a network approach.”

In practice, the results of this hard work are clear – the city is easy to navigate by bike, transit and walking.  It’s more difficult to drive because of little interventions that slow down cars, make parking expensive, and subtly encourage other modes. Public spaces like parks, swimming areas, and public squares are activated.  There are kiosks, food carts, and groceries near the public spaces and there are places to sit, use the toilet and throw away trash.  Public spaces aren’t as heavily surveilled as in the United States. There are tons of different types of spaces all over the city for people to enjoy.  They focus on what makes people feel welcome in public spaces.

Meeting with Gehl at the “Kissing” Bridge — an important connection across the harbor

Making inviting spaces that people use (harbor baths)

Public space with street food, DJs, social space at Reffen