This photo essay is a documentation of my personal experiences as I cycled around Copenhagen. The idea of this photo story flashed as an instinctive reaction to the cycle-friendly environment I encountered in the capital of Denmark. As I watched bicycles zipping past me in this city, I realised cyclists of Copenhagen make this place extremely sexy. This cycle photo series is dedicated to all the policy, planning, designing and willingness shown by the people and the elected representatives of Copenhagen to make it a cyclist’s paradise.
I had heard and read much about the cycling way of life of Kobenhavns (Danish word for Copenhagen, meaning merchants harbour) while working for the Land Transport Authority of the State of Karnataka (India) which plans for sustainable mobility in the state. When I first landed in Copenhagen, I exited the airport and got into the S-train operated by DSB (the state railways, equivalent to the suburban rail system of Copenhagen) to reach my AirBNB apartment on Gothersgade. The entire journey from the train to the apartment was a revelation. It is one thing to hear about the bicycle culture and quite another to be completely overwhelmed by the number of cyclists and the kind of priority and infrastructure the city has built for them.
The Danish urban designer Jan Gehl popularised ‘copenhagenisation’ as a design strategy, which talks about how to centralise bicyclists and pedestrians in urban planning and designing of cities to make them less dependent on automobiles. The philosophy not only showed how a city has managed to make the cyclist the king in a short time by providing adequate cycling infrastructure, but also became an example of how quickly the people of Copenhagen embraced it as a primary mode of transportation.
Cyclists in the city of Copenhagen make this place extremely sexy
Copenhagen has been releasing their bicycle accounts since 1996; 10 key indicators give facts as well as cyclists’ perceptions about various cycling-related information. Some of the indicators reveal how much of the city budget was allocated for cycling infrastructure, the length of cycling networks, modal share, accident statistics etc. These are all measured biennially.
As early as the late ’90s, the Municipal Development Plan of Copenhagen recognised a need to have a green bicycle network, which would be an alternate grid: off-street routes through open spaces, parks and playgrounds and streets with low traffic volumes or neighbourhood streets.
Pose 2: Gangster Hangout
Pose 3: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all
Pose 4: The suicide pose
I have always felt strongly about policymaking and understand how a good policy and the right will can change not only the manner in which the city is built, but also the way people of that city adapt to a vision well crafted by the policy. Policy should be the slow medicine, which dictates behavioural changes in people.
While speaking to a local whom I was staying with in Copenhagen, these were a few of her insights on why this city revels in its biking culture:
1. Buying a car here is an expensive affair. Even if one thinks of buying a car in Germany and shipping it, getting the car registered here in Denmark works out to be really expensive.
2. The city centre has been made seamless with integrated infrastructure for biking, walking and public transport and hence there are certain strict policies for the use of a car.
3. A car in the city centre is taxed much more than if you own one in the suburbs.
4. Parking on the street in the city centre is charged heavily ($50 for a day) and its even more expensive when you have to buy a monthly parking pass.
5. There is minimum off-street parking available within the city centre for cars (including apartments and commercial complexes).
2. Stroget Street decorated for Christmas: It is known as one of the longest pedestrian shopping streets in Europe (spanning 1 km). It is said that this street was Jan Gehl’s laboratory to research public spaces and systematically study them to see how they work. This street was converted to a temporary pedestrian street in November 1962 inspired by a number of streets in post-World War II Germany being converted into ‘pedestrian only’ zones, and was permanently pedestrianised in 1964
3. Multimodal integration at the Copenhagen Central Station (Københavns Hovedbanegård). The number of bicycles at the parking lot outside the station shows how seamless the city has made it for people to opt for cycling as their mode of choice and hop on to trains and the metro for longer distances.
4. Multimodal integration also includes the cycle bogie exclusively for the cyclists to get their cycles into the s-train, which covers long distances and hence provides cyclists a choice to ride their cycles for their last miles.
5. Inderhavnsbroen – one of the pedestrian and cycling bridges in the city connecting Nyhavn (west) and Christianhavn (east)
6. Mode infrastructure integration and treatment: Treatment of road widths where cycle lanes and bus stops intersect. The buses stop on their designated lanes, while the cyclists wait for the pedestrians to cross the cycle lane and get into the bus or a pedestrian refuge is created for the pedestrians to stand to get on and off the bus
Strict policies against car usage along with good seamless infrastructure in the city centre can make for a sustainable, clean, walkable and bikeable city.
The reason I am drawn to these bicycle-friendly cities is because I would like to see my city, Bengaluru, become a haven for cyclists and pedestrians. Walkable and bikeable cities are not only healthier for the environment, but also make their residents physically healthy and mentally happy.
As rightly said by Lewis Mumford: “Forget the damned motor car and build cities for lovers and friends.” Urban planners should try and plan for people to make cities more liveable.
Text and images by Sonal Kulkarni
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