Tam On Transit

I started the morning in Copenhagen, said goodbye to my trusty (and heavy) steed #89, and exited the Generator one last time.  The last stairway out of the building captured the Danish approach to retrofitting their city. It had a simple ramp for strollers (or other wheeled things).  Would this work for a wheelchair? No, not really. There's another main entrance/exit that was fully accessible.  After a week in Copenhagen, I could envision easily incorporating its bicycle infrastructure into the vast majority of US cities and towns--from major metros like Los Angeles, California to suburban Sandy, Utah. Consider four types of inviting streets made comfortable and safe for people to bike: shared space, painted lanes, curb separated bike lanes, and buffered bikes lanes.  When street space elements like trees (or giant cacti in a different climate) and parked cars make people driving cars travel at safe speeds in neighborhoods, the street space ca...

We started the day with a visit to BLOXHUB to meet up with James Thoem of Copenhagenize for a presentation and bike tour. (Check out Copenhagenize on the socials for great info communicated clearly.) BLOXHUB seems to be a co-working space for different organizations that work on sustainable urbanisms. So, it totally made sense that James works out of there for this sort of meeting. It also had an interactive display that visualized bike and car movements and ratios in Copenhagen by year depending on how far away one stood from the display.  First, we listened to a presentation about Copenhagenize's approach to thinking about urban spaces and movement. The biggest takeaway for me was to think of cyclists as fast-moving pedestrians. People on bikes move and behave more like people walking than driving. People on bikes are at risk of death or serious injury if they're hit by someone driving a car. In Copenhagen, the built transportation infrastructure reflects this kno...

Sunday was a rest day for me. I figured out how to work the hostel's laundry machines. I took a stroll and had delicious coffee with a Danish apple tart. It tasted something like a very cinnamon bread pudding with baked apple slices (and optional sour cream). Yum! I enjoyed relaxing and watching people go by. Then, I strolled further still, picked up a hotdog from a hotdog stand, and spent a good hour watching people at Nyhavn (that's the colorful rowhouses on a small harbor that's on so many postcards). After the people's watching, I headed back to the hostel for my check in with the instructors. The structure of this course works really well for the purposes of leaning about bikeable urbanism and experiencing the possibilities firsthand. All of the built aspects of the bike infrastructure could be done anywhere--including and especially US cities and towns. It's straightforward. It could be done without a bunch of complications. It's re...

I promised a post about bike parking and locking. Here it is! Some designated bike parking exists, especially at locations with a lot of people coming or going, like a Metro & bus transfer station or outside of a block of shops and restaurants. Sometimes (as in frequently) there's more bikes than parking, so people line up their bikes next to existing parking, in the space between a walk path and a bike path, or between a walk path and seating (or trees). In Denmark, people simply lock the back wheel of their bike, either to the frame with a chain or with a key lock for the wheel that's attached to the frame. The key stays in as you ride for easy storage. Turn the key and push down on the lever to engage the lock. Once the lock is engaged, remove the key. That's it. That's all there is to locking up a bike in Copenhagen. People don't bother with fancy bikes in the city for daily riding. Ther...

We started the day with a brief lecture at Gehl Architecture's Copenhagen office. I took a route along the lakes to get there--a pleasant experience even if it added a minute or two. Once we all gathered, Andreas Røhl asked us what surprised us the most about Copenhagen. Folks' responses varied from how easy it was to get around to more cars in the city center than we anticipated. Andreas then gave us a brief overview of how Gehl came to his approach and how that approach became the basis of an urban consulting group's concepts and strategies.  Gehl himself trained as an architect, but his wife trained as a psychologist who asked him, "Why aren't you interested in people?" So, he started paying attention to people. Turns out, people make or break cities, so not a bad idea overall. After watching how people spend life between buildings,* aka research, Gehl figured out what makes for good mobility and public space.  First, mobility, aka moving across...

Providing public space for the public to enjoy seems to be a core value in Copenhagen, evidenced by the wide variety and locations of parks and playgounds. Officially in Copenhagen, a playground is a specific type of park. Some of the playgrounds are staffed. We visited such a playground on Day 4, a special playground--the Trafiklegepladsen (The Traffic Playground). As a playground, it turns 50 this year, having seen a transformation from a go-kart style car traffic learning ground to a cycling learning ground for kids. Our group learned about the history and present of the park from Richard, the mechanic and manager who's been on site for 36 years. Playgrounds, both staffed and unstaffed, provide the tools for parents to teach their children. The approach that they take to teaching biking starts with push bikes. (Although the littlest tykes have the littlest bikes, they've got taller push bikes for all ages to learn.) Once they've figured out the pu...

The instructor for this course, Rebecca Lewis of University of Oregon, wisely sets our agenda so that every day of this learning abroad course has a group activity, yet most days have only one such structured activity. This allows us to experience the city at our pace (and recover from jet lag). It also mirrors what I can see of the Danish approach to learning. Kids here in Copenhagen seem to spend a lot of time running around and climbing all over at parks. The younger the target child age group of the space, the more likely there's a fence that has a gate that can't be opened without two hands and a bit of height. Inside the structure of the fenced area, it's pretty much anything goes. A parent is there (dad or mom or both) at a distance if needed but the kids get to experience freedom of movement and play. The older the kid, the greater the distance. This approach provides just enough structure and connection to provide a sense of safety while learning and expanding pers...