Toban Black

(Photo by Colville Andersen)

In Copenhagen

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Copenhagen - City of Cyclists

A music video about bicycling in the city of Copenhagen (in Denmark).  Colville Andersen made that video for the Copenhagen municipal government.

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Chris Turner (in this article) -

“Copenhagen now routinely tops international quality of life rankings.” “Copenhagen’s newfound prominence rests largely on its inviting city centre, which is latticed with a half-dozen pedestrian-only promenades and a dozen car-free squares and stitched to the rest of the city by one of the world’s most meticulously assembled bicycle-path networks.”

“The Strøget – downtown Copenhagen’s high street and the pedestrian network’s main artery – is Europe’s longest pedestrian thoroughfare, and most days it is a dense forest of marching feet.”

“Copenhagen’s lively inner city is a recent and deliberate phenomenon. And it started with a bold experiment similar to Montreal’s summer flirtation with pedestrianization. The Strøget had traditionally been closed to vehicles for two days each Christmas, but by the 1950s its narrow eleven-metre width was choked with two lanes of cars, trucks and buses every other day of the year. So was every other street in downtown Copenhagen, and the city’s stately old squares served mainly as parking lots. So in November 1962, half-disguised as an extended holiday closure, the Strøget went car-free.”

“The initiative immediately inspired widespread and often strident opposition, particularly from downtown merchants, who assumed that a permanently car-free Strøget would be their ruin. Other critics argued that the measure was simply un-Danish. We are Danes, not Italians, they argued. It’s too cold here and it rains too much. We like cozy meals at home, not outdoor cafes.

The fears proved unfounded – the Strøget soon boasted more shoppers, an explosion in café seating, and eventually a new kind of urban culture focused on outdoor public spaces. Building on the Strøget’s success, the network expanded piecemeal – another street and a few more squares emptied of cars in 1968, and again in 1973 and 1980 and 1992. From those first 15,800 square metres of the Strøget, Copenhagen’s pedestrian network has expanded to about 100,000 square metres.”

A “1996 study Public Spaces Public Life … overflows with before-and-after photos of the city streets that look like they were shot in different universes. Each pair of pictures depicts the same radical transition: on the left, in black and white, a desultory 1950s-era parking lot; on the right, a modern full-colour scene of strolling shoppers and hustling foot-propelled commuters, market stalls and buskers and people seated in animated conversation.”

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(Photo by Colville Andersen)

In Copenhagen

There are more photos of those statues — with additional information — here.

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Colville-Andersen (AKA “Zakkaliciousness) has posted a lot of other photos from Copenhagen -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/tags/copenhagen/

He also helps to publish these blogs -
- Copenhagenize.com
- Copenhagen Cycle Chic

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A few related blog posts -
- “Walkability (and bikeability)”
- “Cycling through the city”
- “Lower-carbon, lower-energy transport“