Denmark

The capital of Denmark is constantly doing the math on the true price of car culture. Could America follow their lead?

The post How Copenhagen Measures the Costs of Driving — And Crafts Policy to Reduce Them appeared first on Streetsblog USA.

In 2016, urban design expert Mikael Colville-Andersen, founder of the Copenhagenize blog, wrote a great post he shouldn't have had to write in the first place, explaining why center-running bike lanes are dangerous and stupid. Given the recent push to repeat this failed design on Valencia, Streetsblog decided to run it here.

Our Streetfilm from 2010 documented the experience of North American transportation officials and advocates in Copenhagen during the latest Velo-City conference.

SF editor's note: I can personally vouch for the speed, reliability and comfort of Midttrafik, as I relied on it during my semester in Denmark. 

A section of the post-separated bike lanes on Portola Drive was removed last week and replaced with a design which the SF Municipal Transportation Agency says should be safer and easier for people on bikes to navigate. But at least one commuter who uses the lanes said the change is anything but safe.

Planners presented early concepts for a new Market Street to the public yesterday, moving the discussion forward on revitalizing San Francisco's grand boulevard with features like car-free zones, raised bike lanes, faster transit, and more inviting public spaces.

It can be hard to imagine what San Francisco's streets would look like if the city reaches its official goal of having 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020. As SF begins rolling out protected bike lanes like the one on JFK Drive, there's some skepticism out there as to whether the dream of bicycling as a widely accessible, mainstream mode of transport could materialize here.

I caught Mikael Colville-Andersen's inspiring talk on urban cycling from the Copenhagen context at San Francisco's SPUR on the last Friday of October. I suggested we could do an interview when I came to Copenhagen in December and he graciously agreed, stepping outside into the drizzling snow at a December 10 awards ceremony he was hosting. (The title of this post is a quote from him when he was on stage at the ceremony, and is a new tag line on his blog too.) They were handing out prizes for the best new designs for the next generation of Copenhagen's bikeshare program. He is well known for his blogging at Copenhagenize and Copenhagen Cycling Chic. The photos throughout were taken by me in Copenhagen during the last couple of weeks there.

In Glasgow, Scotland a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to reacquaint myself with a lovely feature of many European cities: broad central city streets converted to pedestrian only. In Glasgow it's on Sauchiehall Street and makes a grand turn onto Buchanan, covering over 20 city blocks. Mostly lined with stores and offices, the landscape created can be "read" as an extended shopping mall, but outdoors, with storefronts opening onto a real street, now converted into a pedestrian and bicycling oasis. The zone is crowded with walkers and shoppers at any given time. (Similar zones that I've visited are the Strøget in Copenhagen, Denmark and Istiklal Caddesi in Beyoglu in Istanbul, Turkey.)