5 Minute Urbanism - Copenhagen - with Mikael from The Life-Sized City

A new installment of 5 Minute Urbanism wherein Mikael has a look at the placement of a proposed bicycle/pedestrian bridge on Copenhagen harbour at Havnevigen/Nokken.
The Life-Sized City documentary series: lifesizedcity.com
Mikael's book "Copenhagenize - the definitive guide to global bicycle urbanism": Wherever you buy your books - a bookshop/online vendor, etc.
Mikael's book "A Short Introduction to Bicycle Urbanism - for people who don't give a fuck": www.blurb.com/b/9352326-a-sho...
And here are the other language versions: www.blurb.com/user/coolville
Outro music by Phil Creamer: hereonout.ca

[@ferryengr]

I am a reformed "traffic" engineer that spent the later half of his career designing multi-modal facilities (pedestrian, bicycle, ferry, bus, rail, air, etc.), but also a cyclists for 40 years as an adult. As you insinuate, an immutable law of design for humans is you must conform to their behavior, not the other way around. Too often, traffic engineers, urban designers and architects assume they can violate user expectancies and induce street or path users to be "obedient" - that never works.

[@MrTheWaterbear]

The issue for me is, that cyclists in Copenhagen rush hour ignore the stop mark on the path and stand completely filling the box I’m supposed to use to cross the road as a cyclist. So I end up parked on the road swearing at the idiot cyclists until the light turns green - which is not where I’m allowed to stand and is dangerous for me. I believe cycling should require a bloody license. Not an expensive one - just pass an inexpensive theory test and be required to carry your cycling license. Then idiots breaking traffic laws and endangering themselves and others would have to pay the price.

[@ElectricityTaster]

@@MrTheWaterbear The solution is to make the place where you are forced to stand not dangerous. Or even better, make a small hill cyclists have to climb and put the stop line at the apex. If you overshoot the stop line, you don't get the downhill boost when the light turns green.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

We have something called 'Near-Democracy', there is examples that a small group of locals block for a prober and logical solution, the so called freetown Christiania have for decades blocked for a prober corridor through 'their private property', they are a obstacle for a cycle logical solution, and a new cycle-bridge. Also Husum-ruten, where a new cycle-bridge a cross a historical canal, have to zic zac through some parking garages area, in stead of a direct connection. But in the actual case, (video) I'd think that the decision-makers is firm for a logical solution, which means two bridges, the strait line, and the waterfront. It is City-Election-Year 2021, in november.

[@akiraishu4453]

glad to see you re-inked your printer

[@ElectricityTaster]

I wince at the thought.

[@stefan_brix]

It is always the same: What Non-Cyclists (and Planners) have in Mind: "Hey Cyclists want to see this and that little street and detours, because they ride for recreation." What Cyclists think: "No, Stupid, we want to go from A2B as effortlessly as possible, take our needs of Transportation serious!"

[@jamesgodfrey4860]

Thank you 🙏 Mikael. I live at Havnevigen and I really hope they are listening to your wise words. Wholeheartedly agree!! Can’t believe how many strange urban planning decisions Copenhagen has made over the last few years.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

I have been thinking about doing some actions to press the politicians to hurry the realization of the harbourbridge, but at the Isl. brygge-side We need both the two bridges, and it is city-election in november, so it is time to do some thing. All this billion-money investments taking place and they just keep the local residents in uncertainty.

[@CitiesoftheFuture]

Great channel! thanks for sharing! hope we can collaborate one day ! ;)

[@yuongon2368]

I came from Cities of the Future! love this channels!

[@AndyMcCavish]

Thank you for the warning, I once tried to pronounce the name of a Finnish town. Took me 2 weeks to recover from the muscle strain.

[@meceneurbandesign5105]

Amazing body of work. I like your videos, especially when kids have solutions grownups are not grasping yet.

[@stevenhale2935]

Thanks for your videos. I live in Manchester where the routes into the city are slowly being built up and this is great information to arm myself with. The city seem to be open to listening to cyclists, recently changing some crossing so they are automatic and prioritise cyclists. The feeling of power when you approach and the road lights turn red is amazing haha

[@TheSidBatra]

I love this man so much

[@20quid]

I would love to see your take on the Mini Holland cycling scheme in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

[@ayarmarxio]

great content!

[@WanderABit]

Ha! I just found there is Polish translation of your book and I ordered one just a second ago :-) Great. A juz zeby informacja byla zupelna tlumaczenie to "Być jak Kopenhaga".

[@MrAsHrAf919]

Hi , I`m an architecture student from Saudi Arabia , and working on urban design project ... will a bicycle infrastructure work in a hot - humid climate ?

[@Tartar]

It should work anywhere where it's not permanently snowing, really.

[@LifeSizedCity]

It worked in most places on the planet for centuries: www.copenhagenize.com/2017/06/egyptian-cycling-history-then-and-now.html

[@meibing4912]

Tokyo is hot and humid in summer. Lots of people biking there and elsewhere in Japan. Also very hilly. I always said to people I preferred hot and hilly in Tokyo to cold, windy and rainy in Copenhagen. So let's not kid ourselves. No place on earth is perfect for cycling every day of the year. What we can see is that people are very adaptive and good at finding solutions. I think electrical bikes and shade can provide some of the solution to cycling in a place like yours.

[@ElectricityTaster]

@@meibing4912 Japan is weird though. For all we know, being sweaty and stinky in Japan may be seen as a healthy aphrodisiac and a sign of hard work. They sell bread in cans, dude.

[@meceneurbandesign5105]

@@meibing4912 Melbourne Australia is perfect for cycling almost all year, few wet days in between

[@artskeohnaad]

Great video! In the Netherlands, if cyclist and pedestrians are creating "so-called" elephant paths (olifantenpaadjes) if city designers try to force us to take detours. This photographer made a compilation of these olifantenpaadjes. Some are very funny, some are quite dangerous. For the six minute video, cross sections just after a bridge are also very very annoying.

[@sissesturesson2268]

Which photographer?

[@anonnymous8237]

Kunne du fristes til at dele links til lokalplaner og lign?

[@Kuchenmischung]

Hey, I thanks for posting videos about these topics! I love to learn more about good urban design in general, and about cyclist friendly cities in particular. I've often thought about visiting Kopenhagen, mainly to check out how they're doing cycling traffic. However, I feel like in this video the solution seems too simple. I suppose you're right with what you say, but the trade-offs a city planner needs to do would also be really interesting to hear about! Or is it really true that mistakes are usually made just because the right knowledge wasn't there? I'd expect that more often, other interests conflict with e.g. the optimal cyclist route. Anyways, your content is great and I think it might help to get a much more informed view when I eventually manage to visit Kopenhagen for a few weeks. Are there other cities (or countries) in Europe that are easily explorable with the bike? I've heard about the Netherlands being awesome in that regard.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

We have what is called 'Near-Democracy', planners and decision-makers have meetings with the locals, it could happends that the locals is against some very logical improvements in common interest. Well mostly the common sense win, but there is examples where the near-locals is an obstacle. It is a living process, but I remeber that even some not traditionel cycle-freindly political parties is firm about the logical solution. I am identical with Cykel Logisk Institut, find me if You come to CPH.

[@MrTheWaterbear]

The cover of your book reminded me of something that is rarely considered in the portrayal and promotion of cycling in art and photography - always so few people wearing helmets! I realize that it is uncommon for adults to wear helmets, but I recall distinctly a cycling lifestyle exhibition at the Danish embassy in Washington, D.C. in 2012 with huge printouts of cyclists - both kids and adults - where only very few were wearing helmets. Thankfully kids are required to wear helmets, but responsible parenting isn’t what most Danes are known for to be honest... so often kids are not wearing helmets. As a Dane who’s had my fair share of close calls and seen horrendous accidents involving cyclists... I would really wish that helmets were promoted even more. And also that cyclists would stay behind the stop line on the bicycle path before the traffic light, and not cycle down narrow one-way roads against the directionality of it. That last one is how I ended up crashing my bike on wet cobble stones and shattering some teeth - an idiot deciding to cycle in the dark without lights against the legal direction of a narrow cobble road in the rain, going very fast. I was making a turn down that road and had to evade them - sadly, my bike slipped and I crashed anyway. Thankfully I was wearing a helmet, so had no head injuries. The worst part is that they ran off so my dental bill was all mine to pay. The broken finger was free to fix - I’m proud of being a tax-paying Dane!!

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

The last 60 years I have been cycling in CPH, without helmet, since I was six, I'd knew the importens of watching out, never taking any chances, and even look behind regulary, what many never do. Last year I have to shout two times to a women, who just trusted the green light, I dont think a helmet would have saved her life. A mad car driver crossing fully red at high speed. So look to the sides look whats coming from behind, know that You are in the middle of a dynamic motion-flow.

[@samvimes2393]

It's kind of sad but I wish we had such problems in Wroclaw ( in Poland ) :(

[@ElectricityTaster]

You need to claw back your right to a clean, healthy, quiet city. With the economic shithole we've been thrown into thanks to the pandemic we need to cut costs of living, and what better way than to replace a car with a bicycle? We have a golden opportunity to push our agenda. Let's peddle the pedal.

[@ElectricityTaster]

why not have both?

[@TokeBroOfficial]

The better design would make the other one obsolete, no one is gonna use it and it would be a waste of money and space

[@ElectricityTaster]

@@TokeBroOfficial I question that. Many cyclists will commute to work using the faster, direct route, but then will come back using the scenic route. Unless there are cobblestones, of course. But, if the cobbles are smoothed out, I think both will be used. The one along the waterfront could be a pedestrian zone where cyclists are guests, with no cycle lanes and very low speed limits. Should not cost much money.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

You got the logical pointe, one for the recreative part, which is also a part of the overall idea, Harbour-cycle-route. There is a row-boat-club as is against it, but it will come anyway. I dont think that the planners is so stupid, that they only will have one bridge, and quite sure We will have both. There was a meeting with the locals in this new quarter, all the comments were about the harbour bridge, when it will come. Nothing is decided, but the landing on this side (in the video) is made. There will soon be a new metro-station at the other side of the harbour, so the new harbour-bridge will give close acces, and the many new residents from the other side will have short distance to the large green area, Amager Fælled. (video) The smoothed cobblestones is more and more a granted part of the planning.

[@79ped]

Hej Michael. Alle broer er, sidst jeg blev informeret, skrinlagt indtil der findes en fælles løsning. De små veje er pt. "blinde" og for smalle til dobbelt cykelsti, udover det er beboerne ikke glade for den nye trafik der ville opstå

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

Begge broer er indlysende nødvendige, og beboerne på begge sider af havnen er mest interesseret i, hvornår havne-cyckel-broen kommer. Isl Brygge> ny metrostation, Teglholmen> Amager Fælled, foruden den almene tilgængelighed, barriere-nedbrydning.

[@DandamanV]

You're the Anthony Bourdain of urban planning.

[@GuyWicks]

No brainer

[@michalziobro1984]

You have no trees on street everything was harvested for concrete roads it is really bad solution. I prefer way we do this in Poland where we plant new trees. So we have more sustainable streets

[@WanderABit]

As the principle I completely agree, but we in Poland cut the trees like crazy actually. In my city it is parking after new parking after new parking, and the thinking is "oh, we cut the trees within the city, but we plant new trees outside in the forest, go get in your car and see it for yourself". There are also screaming examples from Poland when entire central squares simply evaporated to make place for concrete "civilized" squares.

[@rippspeck]

Goes to show that one person's anecdotal experiences don't speak for an entire country. It's all about local politicians.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

There are plenty of trees, come and have a look.

[@chrisbigred1]

Wouldn't a better name for guide to bicycle urbanism be 'Amsterdamize'?

[@magnushmann]

My hypothesis is that the system and methods used for biking infrastructure in Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general is quite specific to that region and hard to implement after the fact in other cities that hasn't had a focus on biking for many decades. Meanwhile, the way Copenhagen and Denmark is generally doing it, is more applicable after the fact, therefore making it more desirable to cities that want to re-develop existing infrastructure to include biking as a more integral part of its transportation network. I didn't really go into detail of the exact reasons and differences but this is all speculation anyway and I could totally be convinced otherwise.

[@MrTheWaterbear]

Amsterdam is an awful cycling experience overall, to be honest. Whether it is a symptom of population density combined with cobble roads, or just that Dutch cyclists cycle like the French drive I do not know. Even in rush hour, I prefer cycling in Copenhagen any day. I don’t know what part of Amsterdam cycling infrastructure to recommend...

[@ElectricityTaster]

Amsterdamize sounds like a Harry Potter spell to turn cars into bicycles.

[@C0deH0wler]

The UK has been going car-first for ages. And yet mini-Holland comes along with modal filters and red asphalt. Cities can change, people just lack imagination. All you need to copy NL is too install a few bollards in access areas (which is 80% of a dutch cycling network), some red pigment, purchase a small width roller machine, and lay down some brick buffer separators. Most cities are saturated with excessive amounts of black asphalt waiting to be useful for once.

[@magnushmann]

@@C0deH0wler You are correct, except a nitpick of mine is that I dislike using red for bike lanes. I much prefer when blue is used, matching the signs and creating continuity.

[@kurt2rsenjazz]

You sound like Lars Ulrich Also Copenhagen is far from the ideal bicycle city. Any urban centre in the Netherlands is vastly superior. But Copenhagen is winning the branding game, deserved or not

[@jesperlett]

That's because bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands is so premium and baked in to the initial planning that it's unobtainable for other cities who are looking for quick solutions. Copenhagen bike infrastructure is relatively cheap and easy to replicate.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

Copenhagen is the best cycle-capitol, still improving.