Embedded Files
My breakfast at the airport waiting for my first of 3 flights to Copenhagen
Pre-Travel Thoughts
Pre-Travel Thoughts
June 23, 2023.
I am very excited to attend the sustainable transportation class in Copenhagen this summer! My ultimate career goal is to work in public transportation planning in order to make our communities less car dependent, and I believe that seeing how Copenhagen has planned for bikeability and public transportation efficiency will be super inspiring for someone just starting out in the field like myself. I traveled to Berlin last summer and was blown away by their public transportation system. It was very easy to use, convenient, and was very well connected. I’m hoping and expecting to find a similar public transportation situation in Copenhagen and I believe that it will be an invaluable experience to meet with the local public transportation agency Trafikselskabet Movia to gain insight into how it all works. I enjoy riding my bike for both commute and recreational purposes, and I believe that people should have the option to ride their bike as a practical and safe transportation option. As one of the most bike friendly cities in the world, there is no better place than Copenhagen to visit to see how to really make biking an attractive alternative to driving, and to encourage mode shift away from cars. I love to visit cities that are not designed around cars, and I believe that this will be a very inspiring trip as a transportation planning student!
Copenhagen
Copenhagen
June 25, 2023
First Impressions of Biking in the City
First Impressions of Biking in the City
First hotel breakfast!
Today I walked around the city with some of the other students on the trip. The weather was beautiful and there were a lot of people out and about and riding their bikes. Some of the main differences that I noticed between the way people use their bikes in Portland vs Copenhagen were:
When I first arrived at the Copenhagen airport yesterday, there was a bike pump right next to the baggage claim, which I have never seen in the United States. The train from the airport to the city center (which was very quick and easy) had multiple people with their bikes on it. It seems that people travel to and from the airport with their bikes here and I don’t think many people bring their bikes to the airport in the United States.
There is a much smaller proportion of people wearing helmets in Copenhagen than in Portland. Even though I knew that this would be the case before coming to Copenhagen, I was surprised to find that I felt thrown off by it. There are a lot of bike lanes that run right next to traffic lanes, so it still seems like one should wear a helmet here. We’ll see how I feel about this topic after I experience riding a bike here myself. The concept of riding without a helmet feels strange to me since I never ride without one in Portland and I rarely see other bike riders without them there.
On the subject of what people are wearing, people in Copenhagen seem to be generally dressed more nicely on their bikes than people are in Portland are. It is not uncommon to see people wearing technical cycling gear such as bike shorts and clip-in shoes in Portland, while here people seem to be dressed less for the ride and more for the destination.
Bikes are less technical looking in Copenhagen than they are in Portland (not that I know anything about bikes). Many of the bikes here look comfortable to ride with baskets and handlebars that allow the rider to sit up straight. In Portland many more people have panniers and handlebars that make the rider more aerodynamic.
There are many more cargo bikes in Copenhagen than in Portland, especially with people as the cargo. I even saw adults riding in the cargo section a couple of times today. In Portland you see people with these bikes from time to time who are using it for work or are carrying kids, but I saw more of them today than I usually do in Portland.
There is so much bicycle parking everywhere here! When I left the train station yesterday I saw the most bikes I think I have ever seen all in one place. There are so many bikes parked everywhere and I wonder how many of them are abandoned and how many are in use. In the US it seems like whenever you see many bikes in one place, a lot of them are usually abandoned or pieces of them have been stolen but most of the bikes I saw here seemed to be in one piece.
Bike parking at the train station
People lock their bikes more casually in Copenhagen than they do in Portland. Some people just lock their wheels to their frame without attaching it to a rack at all. In Portland bikes are always attached to racks and it is not uncommon to see one bike with more than one lock on it securing both wheels and the frame to a bike rack.
Copenhagen, Days 1 & 2
Copenhagen, Days 1 & 2
June 26 & 27, 2023
Meeting with 360 Consulting, Cycle Superhighways, Metro, and the Technical University of Denmark
Meeting with 360 Consulting, Cycle Superhighways, Metro, and the Technical University of Denmark
Our first day was a full day of meetings with 360 Consulting, cycle Superhighways, and then with Metro. We learned that Copenhagen has been designed to make cycling and public transportation more convenient and attractive than driving, though it hasn't always been this way. While it was super interesting hearing about how planners in Copenhagen have been successful in getting people to choose to travel by modes other than car, one of my main takeaways from our meetings is the fact that planners in Copenhagen have and still do face many of the same transportation planning challenges as planners in Portland face. Getting people to bike and ride public transportation is simply a matter of making cars inconvenient in both cities. Cultural differences don’t seem to play into people’s mode choice as much as the transportation planning within each city does. Car ownership and driving have been on the rise in recent years in Copenhagen and planners here are trying to figure out how to bring biking numbers back to what they were at their peak a few years ago. This is a familiar story since Portland bike counts recently came out and revealed that numbers have decreased there in recent years too. It was also mentioned that one of the train lines was closed for construction for three months and many people never used the replacement bus service provided or returned to commute by train after it reopened. The challenge of getting people to choose modes other than driving is not unique to the United States. Overall our meetings on this day gave me hope for the future of American cities. I feel that good planning is enough to lead to mode shift away from cars, even though Americans are used to driving everywhere. Copenhagen was a car centric city in the past too. People will choose the most convenient option in the US just like they do in Copenhagen.
We rode many miles both of these days to get to our meetings and it was cool to see how well connected the bike infrastucture of Copenhagen is, even outside of the city center. We took a long bike ride along one of the cycle superhighway to the suburbs to visit the Technical University of Denmark. The ride was really nice with changing scenery along the way. Even though we rode along some very busy highways on our way there, the cycle superhighway made the ride feel very comfortable and safe with a separated cycle track the whole way. Because the weather was cold and rainy when we were leaving, some of us took the S train with our bikes. The bike transit integration was great with bike ramps along the stair cases in the station and many bike racks within the train car.
Breakfast day 3
A marking on the train platform showing where the car with bike racks will stop
Bike rack on the S train
A bike path junction somewhere in the suburbs
Copenhagen, Day 4
Copenhagen, Day 4
June 28, 2023
Bike Tour with Raw Mobility and meeting with Movia
Bike Tour with Raw Mobility and meeting with Movia
Today we took a long bike ride to see some of the public spaces and bike infrastructure of Copenhagen, including the gardens outside the old Carlsberg brewery, the red square in Superkilen Park, People’s Park, and an old staging site for a public transportation project that has been turned into a green space. It is interesting to see how areas take on different forms and purposes throughout the years, especially in a city as old as Copenhagen. The city has an interesting mix of very old and modern buildings. After our bike tour, we went to the Movia office for a presentation with Mortin. Movia used to be the bus operating agency in Copenhagen, but now only works on bus planning projects. Similar to our meeting with Metro, it became apparent that the public transportation agencies in Copenhagen face many of the same challenges that the ones in the United States do. People here In Denmark, like people in the United States, see the train as a more attractive public transportation option than the bus and Movia has been trying to figure out how to get more people to use the bus. Currently Movia operates 90 bus lines that make up their main strategic network, and 430 total bus lines. Mortin also talked about mobility hubs within the Copenhagen resion where all forms of transportation are integrated, as well as Movia's plan to implement BRT as a connection to the different fingers of the finger train network.
The old Carlsberg brewery that is now an office building.
A cool bike rack seen on our bike tour. This type of rack wouldn't work in a place where bikes need to be locked to racks, but the design was very effective here in Copenhagen.
Luxurious underground bike parking seen on our bike tour.
Copenhagen, Day 5
Copenhagen, Day 5
June 29, 2023
Bike Tour with Rasmus Frisk and meeting with Anne Eriksson, Traffic Safety Engineer
Bike Tour with Rasmus Frisk and meeting with Anne Eriksson, Traffic Safety Engineer
Our tour with Rasmus took us to outdoor public places and parks in Copenhagen on this day. Many of the public places that we visited were well designed to be practical and usable space for many different purposes, but I noticed that the spaces are not over landscaped. Many of the plants growing in these places have a weed like appearance, but it doesn't take away from the appeal and beauty of these spaces. I think this low maintence appraoch to plantings is something that could be considered more in the United States. I worked on a pedestrian plaza project for a class last term where maintenance of plants was a big topic of concern and it seems like maybe that topic might not need to be so concerning. Greenery is important in urban places, whether it is meticulously maintained or not. Parks in Copenhagen are designed with both adults and children in mind, and also take environmental considerations into the design concepts, such as having lower areas that can fill with water after “cloud bursts”. Rasmus also took us to his housing co-op courtyard area which is a shared multi-use outdoor space with designated spaces for bike parking, baby carriage parking, outdoor cooking, recreation areas, outdoor dining areas, and places for drying laundry. It's like one large shared backyard for all 200 units within the building. Later in the afternoon Anne Eriksson talked to us about traffic safety and vision zero in Copenhagen.
A public park with posts that can be used to hang nets, hammocks, or other things from. Notice the weed like plants growing in the park that don't take away from the park's appeal.
Superkilen Park
Cool rainbow bike parking at the red square.
Copenhagen, Day 6
Copenhagen, Day 6
June 30, 2023
Bike Tour with Charlotte Algreen and meeting with Bettina Werner of Urban13
Bike Tour with Charlotte Algreen and meeting with Bettina Werner of Urban13
Our group set out on bikes for Nordhavnen with Charlotte this morning and it was a lovely ride along the wide cycle tracks of Copenhagen. When we arrived, Charlotte bought the group coffee and we headed up to a really unique rooftop that was equipped with benches, swings, trampolines, and other equipment for playing or exercising. We got a great view of the water and the rest of the neighborhood from the rooftop. The Nordhavnen area used to be industrial and has been undergoing dense housing development during the past 10-12 years. This area has a totally different feel than the rest of Copenhagen since all of the buildings are new and many of them have ultra modern and sleek designs. One of my favorite things we saw in Nordhavnen was the trash and reuse area in one of the apartment buildings. The trash area was clean and very well sorted, and the reuse area was large and set up like a little store with shelves. There was also a library for used books. It reminded me of the thrift stores that some of the transfer stations in Hawaii operate. I wish there were more of these types of places in the United States. I love hunting for treasures, and I know that a lot of perfectly usable items are thrown out every day since that is the most convenient way to get rid of them. After lunch we met up with Bettina Werner in the beautiful little cottage that is a part of Urban 13. Urban 13 is an urban renewal project based in Fridreksberg that has been running a placemaking project under a large highway bridge for the past five years. Many different events are held in their space including concerts, flea markets, and sports practice and events.
The rooftop of a building in Nordhavenen.
The resuse area of an apartment building in Nordhavenen.
Urban 13's little cottage under the bridge.
Aalborg, Day 1
Aalborg, Day 1
July 3, 2023
Bike Tour
Bike Tour
Today we took a bus and a ferry to Aalborg where we went for a bike tour around the city. Aalborg is the third largest city in Denmark and it is quite a bit quieter than Copenhagen, especially when the weather was as cold, rainy, and windy as it was on this day. Our tour guide took us to some of the large murals on buildings around the city and told us about how Aalborg has become a destination for famous street artists around the world. This is a successful project that has been sponsored by the local art galleries and has given the city of Aalborg a place on the map and has made the city a destination for street artists. There is a lot of interesting architecture along the waterfront of Aalborg that is mostly either a part of the university there, or is used as student housing. Our tour guide told us that student housing in Aalborg has some of the best real estate in the city and is very nice in order to encourage people to go to school in Aalborg rather than in the larger cities of Copenhagen or Aarhus. One of the most interesting places that we went on our bike tour was a small neighborhood of little cottage houses that people call little Christiania. The small community even had its own bar and music house and I would love to learn more about the history and happenings of this area. I’ve heard more than one person in the class mention that they found Aalborg to be less bike friendly and more car centric than Copenhagen. I didn’t feel that way though. I felt that everywhere we walked and biked was comfortable and I didn’t feel unsafe at any time. One difference between the two cities was the fact that we didn’t have to lock our bikes at all in Aalborg.
Breakfast buffet on the ferry. The people of Denmark seem to love a breakfast buffet!
One of the many murals of Aalborg.
The music house in "little Christiania".
Aalborg, Day 2
Aalborg, Day 2
July 4, 2023
Meeting and walking tour with Cowi
Meeting and walking tour with Cowi
We met with the engineering consulting firm Cowi this morning to learn about their sustainability goals and projects and one of their current big projects implementing a new BRT project in Aalborg which is going to open in September and have 24 stops. Cowi worked on two pivotal bridge projects in Denmark as well as many other big projects around the world like a Fraser Tunnel in Vancouver, BC. Rene from Cowi led our rainy, windy and cold walking tour around Aalborg and we visited many of the same locations along the waterfront that we’d seen on the bike tour the day before. We also got to see some of the BRT stations and lanes around town and the car graveyard which is a bus only road that keeps cars out with a large pit that cars that drive into it have to be towed out of if they drive into it. This type of design would be very useful for keeping cars out of public transportation lanes in the United States, but I don't think politically that it could ever be implemented. At least not any time soon. I can imagine a park-in protest similar to the one that happened on Division during this past week in Portland happening in response to a project like that.
The music hall in Aalborg during our tour with Renee of Cowi
A swimming area along the water front in Aalborg.
Malmo
Malmo
July 5, 2023
We had a walking tour with Martin Nelson this morning in Malmo. We got to see a lot of really great bike transit integration in Malmo. The train stations have a lot of bike parking around them, a bike repair shop, and a cafe. These transit stations were some of the best I have seen on this trip and the amenities and design seem like they have been designed by people who bike and take public transportation. Later in the afternoon we met with Lars Ekman who gave a talk about Vision Zero in Sweden. This was one of my favorite talks from the entire trip and really inspired me to rethink how we think about traffic safety. Even as a person who is acutely aware of how dangerous cars are, I feel that I just take for granted that cars and roads are unsafe places, but Lars made me rethink that assumption. I would like to learn more and work more on Vision Zero projects in the future.
Bike pakring in Malmo demonstrating how many bikes can fit within a car parking space.
A bike repair shop at one of the train stations in Malmo
A pedestrian street in Malmo.
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