Copenhagen’s Car-Free Streets & Slow-Speed Zones

by Clarence Eckerson, Jr. on August 4, 2010 | 8,519 Plays

In Copenhagen, you never have to travel very far to see a beautiful public space or car-free street packed with people soaking up the day.  In fact, since the early 1960s, 18 parking lots in the downtown area have been converted into public spaces for playing, meeting, and generally just doing things that human beings enjoy doing. If you're hungry, there are over 7,500 cafe seats in the city.

But as you walk and bike the city, you also quickly become aware of something else: Most Copenhagen's city streets have a speed limit of 30 to 40 km/h (19 to 25 mph).  Even more impressive, there are blocks in some neighborhoods with limits as low as 15 km/h (9 mph) where cars must yield to residents.  Still other areas are "shared spaces" where cars, bikes and pedestrians mix freely with no stress, usually thanks to traffic calming measures (speed bumps are popular), textured road surfaces and common sense.

We charmed you last month with our look at bicycling in Copenhagen, now sit back and watch livable streets experts Jan Gehl and Gil Penalosa share their observations about pedestrian life. You'll also hear Ida Auken, a member of Denmark's Parliament, and Niels Tørsløv, traffic director for the City of Copenhagen, talk about their enthusiasm for street reclamation and its effect on their city.

Original link on Streetfilms.org

Move Over PSA from the Virginia State Police

Shawn Vestal: Driver created ‘horrible bond’

Shawn Vestal The Spokesman-Review

William Knight was driving his 1997 Kia without insurance when he hit a bicyclist outside Cheney in April, police say.

A few days later, he was cited again: no insurance, expired tabs, driving with altered plates.

So Becky Jeffries finds it hard to accept when she’s told by the state patrol that Knight was likely not to blame for hitting and killing her stepfather, James L. Dahl, as he walked across First Street in Cheney on June 27.

Knight is to blame, she says, because he should not have been driving in the first place.

“The fact that he hit somebody else with no insurance, and was stopped (after) that with no insurance – that’s a problem,” she said. “I feel that this guy should be in jail.”

But it seems very possible that this guy will not wind up in jail – at least not for these collisions. (The criminal charges he faces for allegedly stealing his sister’s wedding ring and pawning it might be a different story.) Jeffries and Ted Chauvin – the bicyclist hit on April 15 – say they’ve been told by investigators that Knight probably will not be charged with a crime.

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol say they have not arrived at final decisions. Chauvin’s case has been bounced around the sheriff’s department, after the deputy who initially investigated it left the agency. The case has landed on the desk of Detective Dave Thornburg. I couldn’t reach Thornburg, but in a phone message he said the case had simply fallen behind some higher priorities – including a couple of fatal accidents.

“I haven’t forgotten about it, I just haven’t had the time to get back to it,” he said.

WSP spokesman Trooper Troy Briggs didn’t dispute Jeffries’ characterization of the investigation’s status, but couldn’t be more specific on short notice Thursday. A significant detail is the fact that Dahl was not in a crosswalk when he was struck. Briggs said he understands the frustrations of people who lose loved ones, but that a driver with a record still might not be to blame in a given case.

I tried to reach Knight, but he didn’t return my calls.

Chauvin, a research assistant professor in the new medical school program at Washington State University in Spokane, is a longtime bicyclist who was out for a training ride on Cheney-Plaza Road when Knight clipped him from behind.

“Next thing I know, I’m flying through the air, and I see my bike flying one way and his car decelerating,” he said. “It was a really surreal experience.”

Chauvin suffered broken bones in his ankles and wrists. His elbows were “ripped open.” Fortunately, he said, he didn’t suffer any head injuries.

Knight stayed with him, expressed remorse and helped him complete a 911 call, Chauvin said. He told Chauvin he’d been reaching for his cigarettes and hadn’t seen him. But he later appears to have told the sheriff’s deputy that Chauvin was riding on the opposite side of the road – a version of events that went out in the initial news release and was reported in the local media.

That chafed Chauvin, who is passionate about the importance of bicyclists following the rules. He also fears it may have muddied the waters in the investigation of his case.

Chauvin was hospitalized for four days. He had surgeries on his ankle and wrists, with plates and pins now holding things together. He missed five weeks of work. Shortly after he returned, he was reading the newspaper one day when he saw a story about Dahl’s accident.

The driver’s name leapt out at him: William W. Knight Jr.

He called the sheriff’s department, reaching a sergeant who told him the initial investigator had left the department and that no charges were likely, he said.

“Then I dropped the bomb on him,” Chauvin said. “I said, ‘Did you realize this is the same guy who hit and killed a guy in Cheney?’ ”

The sergeant did not. And Thornburg – in his message to me some two months later – says he still needs to sit down with the WSP and consider the cases together.

Jeffries said that, although Dahl was not in a crosswalk, she has a hard time believing there wasn’t some responsibility on Knight’s part. It was a well-lighted area, with no other traffic around, and Dahl was not someone to walk out in front of cars, she said.

She wonders why Knight’s license was not suspended – he has ignored his April citations and they’ve been turned over to a collection agency. It might not have kept him off the road, but it would have given officers a reason to arrest him at the accident, she said.

Jeffries’ aggravation is understandable. But Briggs, the WSP spokesman, and Christine Anthony of the Department of Licensing noted that a driver’s license isn’t suspended immediately for receiving a no-insurance ticket. Drivers have a right to argue their case in court, for one thing. And if they fail to appear, a deadline must pass before the state can act.

As unsatisfying as it is, it takes time.

As unsatisfying as it is, Knight’s license is now, finally, suspended.

Jeffries says she plans to press her case with the police and prosecutors. She and Chauvin want to work toward what they see as a just end: a legal consequence for the man who brought them together.

“We have this horrible bond now,” Chauvin said. “Thanks to Mr. Knight.”

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com.
Link to original article

Authorities in NC look for driver in bike hit-and-run

Tom Vanderbilt talks "Traffic"

Sharing the road with bicycles is hardly a hardship

Nobody's time is so important they can't look out for the little guy  

By Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun (Link to Original Article) 

May 3, 2010

There are many dreadful burdens in this cruel life we lead: disease, heartbreak, war, taxes and death. But despite all the anguished cries from drivers who balk at the slightest delay, sharing the roads with bicyclists just doesn't rank in the same class.

You wouldn't know that from some of the reactions on the Getting There blog to a recent item about a bill that establishes a buffer between motor vehicles and bicycles. The way some people carry on, you'd think they'd been sentenced to drive at bike speed in perpetuity.

The law that passed the General Assembly is simple enough. It tells the folks in cars and trucks and those testosterone-fueled Dodge Rams to allow 3 feet of distance between their vehicles and the bicyclists they are passing. It's something drivers should be doing already.

Now the police aren't going to be out on the streets with magic electronic rulers ticketing folks who come within 2 feet, 11 inches of a bicycle for a nanosecond. But it does give them a statute to rely on if they see some road-raging lunatic buzzing a bicyclist by a few inches. Chances are, most of the tickets under this law will be written after a driver actually clips a bicyclist. Right now, unless the police can show actual intent to injure, there's not a lot they can do in such cases.

Mostly the law serves to educate. It sets a standard that can be taught in driver's ed classes. It gives parents a clear-cut rule to pass on to their teens with learners' permits.

But for some folks, any concession to the safety of bicyclists is a surrender to the forces of two-wheeled evil. Here are a few of the reactions:

I live in a scenic rural area, where cycling groups take weekend fun rides EVERY weekend. The roads have no shoulders and no turn lanes. There are no easy detours — when I run across a bunch of Lance Armstrong wannabes going 25 in a 40 or 50 mph zone, I can't just 'turn at the next corner and go around' them. That will take me a mile or more out of my way.

And there's this:

I use these roads to go to the grocery store, the doctor's office, my parents' house, the hardware store, you name it. I don't appreciate the packs of city dwellers who drive out here, park their cars, and clog up my neighborhood thoroughfares. I can't tell you how many times I have been driving at the posted speed and come around a blind corner, only to almost hit a cyclist going less than half the posted speed in the middle of the lane.

And another:

Shame on the State legislature for bowing down to another special interest group. … Bicyclists pay no highway taxes, and should therefore have no more special privileges than pedestrians.

When a bicyclist hears or sees a vehicle approaching, he should pull far off the shoulder to not [impede] traffic. Bicyclists caught in the traffic lanes should be fined.

My reaction: Cry me a river.

It has been more than five years since I last took a bicycle onto a Maryland road, so by now I am firmly in the majority of folks who get around mostly by engine-driven vehicles. But the experience of trying to share the road with speeding drivers tends to stay with you.

For decades now I've driven the back roads of Maryland, occasionally coming upon groups of bicyclists pedaling furiously but poking along by gas-driven standards. And at times, on curvy two-lane roads, their presence has actually forced me to slow down — sometimes for more than a minute or two — until the road straightened out and I could pass.

And guess what? There was no permanent damage. Never was an appointment missed or a destination denied. The world kept spinning on its axis.

Here's a flash for the internal combustion crowd: Bicyclists, even the Lance wannabes who live somewhere else, have a right to be on all roads except for a few high-speed highways. They do not impede traffic; they are an integral part of traffic. It has been thus since the dawn of the auto age. Should bicyclists stay to the right and use the shoulders when they can? Absolutely. But there are times when they have to use the travel lanes and the rest of us just have to learn to share.

Bicyclists may not pay gas taxes, but they pay sales tax on their bikes. The government hits them up in most of the ways it hits up others. Their bikes cause no pollution and almost zero wear to the road system. They don't require widened highways or significant traffic law enforcement.

They don't seem to demand much except that other drivers honor their right to safe roads. Even when they ask for a bike path, they're happy to share it with hikers.

So what harm are they doing?

The rules of the road boil down to an essential principle: The big should look out for the little guy even when the little guy is in the wrong. The tractor-trailer truck driver should defer to the guy in the SUV; the SUV driver should let the woman in the small car merge; the motorist should look out for motorcyclists and bicyclists, who should in turn refrain from running over pedestrians.

Maybe the local clergy could find a sermon topic in this clash between motorized and human-propelled cultures.

How would Jesus drive? Would he buzz bicyclists or counsel us that blessed are the meek of vehicle?

Would the Buddha rage at delay or find good karma in driving gently?

Would Muhammad spur us to vehicular jihad or remind us that Allah prizes mercy over wrath.

Can't we at least agree that Moses and the authors of the Talmud would tell us to stop kvetching and obey the law already?

With Gov. Martin O'Malley planning to sign the bill, the 3-foot law will take effect Oct. 1. There's no reason under Heaven to wait until then to comply.

michael.dresser@baltsun.com

http://twitter.com/michaeltdresser

Copyright © 2010, The Baltimore Sun

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