In 2015, artist Olafur Eliasson designed the Circle Bridge (Cirkelbroen) to span a canal in central Copenhagen. The pedestrian bridge was designed to slow people down a bit:
The bridge is made of five circular platforms, and it contributes to a larger circle that will form a pedestrian route around Copenhagen Harbour, where people — cycling, running, walking — can see the city from a very different perspective. As many as 5,000 people will cross this bridge each day. I hope that these people will use Cirkelbroen as a meeting place, and that the zigzag design of the bridge will make them reduce their speed and take a break. To hesitate on our way is to engage in bodily thought. I see such introspection as an essential part of a vibrant city.
Small boats can travel easily under the bridge but a section of the bridge also swings gracefully away to let larger boats pass. (via greg allen)
In the NY Times, architect and urban designer John Massengale discusses how four European cities (London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen) addressed their urban traffic problems and how NYC might apply those lessons to fix its own traffic issues. Massengale shared what the Dutch learned in reconfiguring their streets:
1. When drivers slow down to 20 m.p.h. or below, they are less likely to hit people and much less likely to seriously injure or kill people if they do hit them.
2. The best way to slow cars down is to throw away all the techniques that traffic engineers developed to make traffic flow quickly.
3. When you throw out all the detritus of traffic engineering, it becomes much easier to make beautiful places where people want to walk. Bike riding becomes more pleasant and safer as well.
His four-step plan to fix traffic in Manhattan is equally simple in principle:
The next step is to adopt congestion pricing below 96th Street in Manhattan and then:
1. Decrease the number of Manhattan streets that function as transportation corridors primarily devoted to moving machines through the city.
2. Design and build Slow Zones where people actually drive slowly.
3. Make the transportation corridors that remain better urban places, with a better balance between city life and moving cars.
Seems to me a vital part of this is fixing, expanding, and subsidizing the subway system…get everyone using the subway. Better, more reliable, and cheaper public transportation = less demand for taxis and Lyfts. As Bogota mayor Enrique Peñalosa said, “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport.”
Kirven Blount travels to Denmark to try out for a Danish professional basketball teams. “You go to your local gym to play basketball. Some enormous foreigners arrive. They play very well. So do you. They tell you they are professional basketball players from Denmark, and that you should fly to Copenhagen for a tryout.”
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