Copenhagen: Presentations & Tours

Our time in Copenhagen included a couple of super interesting presentations and tours that gave us some special insights into the city, specifically into their long and safe cycle ways, their architecture principles, and their waste management.

Cycle Superhighways

An orange circle with a C, marking the cycle track as part of a cycle superhighway

What are they?

Cycle superhighways are cycle routes in Copenhagen that are made for people to commute into and around the city. They are safe and connected routes where the commuter is the priority, and they are comparative to the S train network with an average of 13 km covered for each route. The goal is to make intuitive cycle routes so that the people that commute into the city can do so on their bikes. This is done by tackling the little things, such as adding foot rests at stoplights, and the bigger things, such as making sure there are a minimal amount of lights that people have to stop at on their way into the city.

How are they made?

Cycle superhighways are made by working together with municipalities and they are built with national funding. Routes are connected through existing infrastructure like puzzle pieces to create pathways, and standards are set for planning, building, way finding, and maintenance (it's cool to see maintenance included because one of the biggest problems with our bike lanes in MD are that they aren't maintained very well). 

In the presentation, it was stressed that communication is one of the most important factors in getting people to use their lanes. If they don't know its there, they won't be able to take advantage of it, so advertising that there is a safe and connected route into the city is super important to make it last and to be able to build more, especially when mayors are involved and residents feel like they're part of a story.

Effects

• Average of a 36% increase in bike traffic with superhighways
• 65% of Danes have a commute of 12 miles or less
• Data showed a socio-economic return on investment: if you invest in cycle infrastructure you get it back, especially because of the health benefits
• People have realized realized that it's possible to bike with the good infrastructure, signage, and communications

Gehl Architecture

A lot of the Gehl principles were very interesting to learn about and helped me take in the surrounding city in a new perspective. Here are some of the points that stuck with me:

• Learn how people behave and the life they want, then shape the landscape around that
• An example of this is desire paths, and creating real paths from dead grass that people have been walking over showing that they want a path there
• Think of streets as both links to destinations and as places themselves
• This helps people think of streets in a different way so that they can be made with care for all modes of transportation, places for people to stop or play, and aesthetically pleasing aspects of design
• Active edges can improve people's experience on streets and help them perceive their travel time to be lower
• Active edges are edges of buildings that are activated in some way through the architecture, showing that the space is used so they provide stimuli for people experiencing the environment
• Choosing the right place for pilot projects is important
• If you add a bike lane on a street that people don't use to get to work, people might not use it and you won't have the data that would show people that another bike lane could be helpful, but if you pick the right street that people use every day, the uptick in cyclists using the bike lane could be supported by that data
• It's better to put a bike lane in where it takes you somewhere instead of just a random place
• You don't have to fully remove car parking; you can change it to fix your streets
• Removing street parking for a bike lane might be a mandatory concession on some streets, but on others, changing car parking to diagonal parking spots instead of parallel parking can help narrow the road and serve as traffic calming
• People are more likely to be okay with street parking removals if it is replaced with something that enhances the community, like trees or a common area
• In places where the bike commuter culture isn't already prevalent, it can take some time for bike lane usage to increase
• Some places take 4 years to develop a bike culture, so it could take that long for the data to show from them using the bike lane
• This relates to my transportation pre-assignment because the bike commuter culture is beginning to develop in Columbia, which could also explain the small amount of people using the Oakland Mills road protected bike lane

Copenhill

Me with the outside of Copenhill

Copenhill (or Amager Bakke) is a large ski hill, rock climbing facility, and rooftop bar, with a plant under it that turns Copenhagen's waste into energy for electricity and heat.

Waste-to-Energy

Our group 10 stories up inside the plant (top) & waste arriving to the plant (bottom)

Copenhagen collects household waste with electric trucks, and has large recycle stations for people to recycle and re-use. Commercial companies deliver their waste to the plant and have to pay based on how much waste they have. This waste is then used at Amager Bakke to produce heating through district heating and to produce electricity. The emissions from this plant are very low and far below many of the standards that have been set, and the gas coming out at the top is very clean, which is why it is able to be so close to the city and people are able to live right beside it.

Carbon Capture

A banner inside the plant that says "we capture CO2"

Amager Bakke has been a pilot project for carbon capture, and would be able to do carbon capture if they were able to get more money. The goal of the pilot project was to learn how to capture carbon and do it in an energy efficient way. They did this by using chemicals to capture it, then using the heat produced from capturing it for district heating. The plan when they are able to get more funding is to put the carbon into reservoirs where natural gas and oil have previously been taken out, use it to make ammonia fertilizers, or use it to make artificial fuels for ships/airplanes/trucks.

Rooftop

The ski lift (top) & the Copenhill rooftop (bottom)

The rooftop of Copenhill is an area where many people do grass skiing, rent out the bar area with games and tables for their company, or come up for a nice view of Copenhagen. The rooftop is completely unaffiliated with the waste-to-energy plant below (and we got kicked off of the roof during our tour of the plant, because even though we were approved to see that, we weren't allowed to be on the rooftop). This was a pretty cool use of space so that instead of just leaving the plant as is, the top and sides were converted into recreational areas.

- Lauren

Danish Architecture Center

After hearing about the Copenhagen in Common exhibit at the Danish Architecture Center, I was really excited to check it out for myself, so I rode the short ride over to the museum on some nice grade separated bike lanes to hopefully learn how those along with other infrastructure and architecture has developed in Denmark. 

So Danish Exhibit

Through I was mainly there for the Copenhagen in Common Exhibit, I really enjoyed this exhibit that provided me with a background on Danish architecture, and even some planning.

The Five Finger Plan

The thing I found most intriguing about this exhibit was the Five Finger Plan. The plan for the city's spread was that each of the fingers would correspond to a line on the S-train and the areas between the fingers would be to preserve nature, while the areas of the fingers would be for development. This plan is interesting because nature is a priority, but there is still area to develop, and it serves as an urban growth boundary to prevent sprawl.

The architecture history section of the So Danish exhibit

I also really enjoyed getting to learn more about architecture and see all of the models. I never knew that a Danish architect was responsible for creating the Sydney Opera House, and I learned a lot of other cool fun facts about architecture from this exhibit.

Common in Copenhagen Exhibit

This exhibit was really interesting and helped me to see the planning history of Copenhagen, especially their history of converting streets to be for people on bikes.

Environment

Signs from the environmental protest

There has been a debate and protests about one of the last uncultivated natural areas in Copenhagen, Amager Faelled, where some people want to develop the land for the growing population and some want to preserve the natural area. It has been used as a waste area from construction, but it has also been a habitat for some rare animal species. Despite that, Copenhagen does a lot and has done a lot to provide areas for animals within the city with big green spaces, whether that is rooftop gardens or greenways that prevent habitat fragmentation. 

Re-use and Usage of Space

A lot of new housing developments in Copenhagen re-use old industrial buildings or shipping containers to make space for people. Additionally, these housing developments use space creatively by including play places for children, rooftop gardens, green walls, and courtyard common areas for the residents. Almost every building in the city center is mixed use; for example, in the building of the museum, the upper floors were a gym and an office building. Something I'm still always so surprised about in the city is the creative uses of all space to provide solutions for housing issues. Many social housing developments are transformed in a way that re-uses materials and develops the space so that it's safe and connected, but is also sustainable, providing housing for people who need it while also doing their part to prevent sprawl.

Cycling

A board from the cycling part of the exhibit

Copenhagen was not always a cycling city, and it was planned for cars in the 1950s/60s just like America. In the 1970s, people began protesting because days that were designated as car-free days during the gasoline shortage turned out to be some of the best days. After this, the city transformed itself into a better cycling city with infrastructure such as elevated cycle paths, bridges, and paths through nature, and changed the planning of its streets to prioritize cars less. This has brought it to its position as one of the greatest cycling cities of the world.

A part of the exhibit where you could ride a bike to transform a car-centric city street into a street for people

My main takeaway from this exhibit is that we can do this too in America. Our cities are car-centric now, just like Copenhagen was, but we too can begin to plan for bikes and public transportation and make them more liveable for the people there, instead of easier for cars. Many people like to argue that we can't do this because "America isn't Copenhagen" or "America isn't the Netherlands," but many of the cities here in Europe were in a very similar position that we are in now. Sure, it might not look exactly the same, but we can certainly reconstruct our cities to provide more value to the people living there and to be more sustainable.

Learning More About Parks

One of the playgrounds in Superkilen from the exhibit

At the museum, I learned that two of the playgrounds (the ones I called the red playground and the black and white playground are actually both part of a large park called Superkilen (the Super Wedge), which uses art as a tribute to the diverse area to attempt to reinvent a social housing area with a bad reputation. These parks both have communities nominate objects from their home country, and have artists retrieve and install them in different areas. This is a unique way to involve the people that live there, so that they can take their kids to play places that are meaningful to them and help them learn more about their culture and other cultures.

Overall, the Danish Architecture Center answered a lot of lingering questions I had about the history of bike infrastructure in Copenhagen, as well as others about housing here, how many people feel safe enough to bring their kids here, etc., so it was super interesting. In addition to the museum being incredibly interactive with slides you could go down and bikes you could pedal, I also loved the main architecture exhibit and learning so much about Danish architecture's development, what famous buildings were actually created by Danish architects, and how they are using architecture to mitigate the effects of climate change.

- Lauren