Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Room for everyone on Nørrebrogade, including a human-powered wedding procession. © Lorenz Siegel
If, as I have said, the bicycle is the most important and powerful tool in our urban toolbox for making cities better, it’s high time that we took a long, hard look at the blueprints. Our greatest advantage is that we possess them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when this particular wheel is round and has been rolling for more than a century.
A street is the space between the façades of the buildings on it. That is the space with which we have to work. All too often, people look at the street as the place where we have put cars and promptly eliminate it from further consideration, thereafter declaring: “We don’t have any space!” This is an undemocratic approach. As my friend Jason Roberts from Better Block Foundation puts it, “You have to shrink the scale.” Our urban short-term memory loss applies here, too. Sidewalks in New York and many cities were wonderfully wide and welcoming in the decades before the automobile started chipping away at them. Our streets have morphed several times through the centuries. For example, Roman streets were concave, to act as drainage canals when it rained. With car-centric traffic engineering, they are now convex, allowing the water to flow into the gutters—towards homes and buildings—and away from the cars traveling on them.
You may have seen guides to infrastructure design before. What I will present here is the definitive guide to best-practice infrastructure for cycling in cities. I have seen and studied infrastructure standards—or the lack thereof—in dozens of countries. What a crazy, ragtag collection of ideas! I want to make it clear that overcomplication is unnecessary and to present tried-and-tested designs that form the backbone of Danish bicycle planning.
There are only four basic designs in Danish bicycle planning. One of these four fits every street in the Danish Kingdom and, indeed, every street in every city in the world.
In a way, my colleagues and I have the easiest job in the world. If a city asks me to design infrastructure on a street, I ask two questions. First, how many cars are there in a 24-hour period? Second, what is the posted speed limit for those cars? Based on the answers to those two questions, I will choose one of four designs.
Four. There are only four basic designs in Danish bicycle planning. One of these four fits every street in the Danish Kingdom and, indeed, every street in every city in the world. Nothing less. I find it fascinating how our design traditions eventually filtered down into our bicycle infrastructure, where we boiled them down, simplified them, and ended up with a tidy and intuitive package.
The journey had a rocky start, from the world’s first dedicated path for cyclists in 1892 in Copenhagen and the 1896 law allowing cyclists to use the outer edge of riding paths elsewhere. Bikes were dominant as a transport form, but there were few rules to govern them. In fact, there were few rules for traffic in general, at least until the first Danish traffic law was established in 1923 and revised in 1932. Bicycle users in the 1920s were “irritating” to motorists. Cyclists often rode in rows and crossed the streets when it pleased them to do so, using the streets like seven centuries of city citizens had done before them—just on two wheels. Traffic behavior was a new phenomenon now that cars started multiplying. It was in 1924 that red reflectors were made mandatory on the back of bicycles, but tackling the growing number of accidents involving cars was tricky. Giving each traffic user group a section of the streets was the way forward.
In December 1928, Denmark’s Cycle and Auto Industry Association and the Danish Cyclists’ Federation tried to call attention to the problem of traffic crashes—contacting all the authorities they could, from the government to the local parish councils. By the mid 1920s, the construction of bicycle infrastructure had become such a hot topic that it was discussed at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Association of County Councils in July 1929. Separating traffic was a compelling necessity, even though it cost money and demanded space, stated Vice Chairman Henningsen of the National Tax Council (Landsoverskatterådet) in his speech at the AGM. His main message was that cycle tracks should be of high quality, because otherwise cyclists would just use the road. But which solution was best and least expensive?
Cycle tracks physically separated by curbs or grassy strips, bike lanes on the side of the road and separated with painted lines, or cycle tracks parallel to the roads and separated with grass, trees, or ditches? Or perhaps it was necessary to build fully separated bicycle roads? There were many opinions on the subject around the country.
County Inspector Troelsen from Aalborg, in a speech at the AGM about bicycle stripes, claimed that on the country roads of Northern Jutland the bicycle users didn’t mind cycling on the narrow painted lanes on the shoulder of the roads. The county road administration had therefore widened the asphalt on the sides of the road to allow for one meter on either side for bicycles.
Aalborg had built physically separated cycle tracks along the roads leading to the town center, but they were little used. “Building physically separated cycle tracks along our country roads is, in my opinion, the wrong approach,” stated Inspector Troelsen. They were also more expensive to build, which appeared to be the primary hurdle.
Elsewhere, Holbæk County supported cycle tracks parallel to roads. They also painted lanes to separate bicycles from cars, as was popular in Germany at the time. They were a cheaper solution in case the roads needed widening, and many roads did back then, because of increasing traffic.
Dedicated bicycle roads were widespread in densely populated areas in the Netherlands, but such areas were rare in rural Denmark. The Dutch had a bicycle tax for financing a national network of cycle tracks. A similar tax was discussed in Denmark, too. Taxing the rubber used in bicycle tires was proposed as a means of paying for cycle tracks, but it never ended up happening.
A street in Montreal showing that there is ample space for a cycle track.
All of this was a response to the rising number of bicycles and motor vehicles, not to mention horse-drawn wagons, all of which needed some structure and fast. In 1933, 1.5 million Danes rode bikes daily, which was 44 percent of the population. The cities were first movers, as per usual, but it was a slower process in the countryside. In 1930, there were only 88 kilometers (55 miles) of bike lanes on country roads in the nation. That rose to 342 kilometers (213 miles) just three years later, but this only meant that 4 percent of rural roads had infrastructure.
It was in the late 1930s that the goal of keeping cyclists safe with infrastructure really gained purchase. The quick and dirty solution was painting a lane on the side of the road, but this did little to protect cyclists. Even then, the Dutch were on the same page. As the head of municipal planning for The Hague put it at the International Road Congress in that city in 1938: “The usual reserved stripes for cyclists that only separate them from the road with a line, can only be regarded as a surrogate solution.”
Physically separated cycle tracks weren’t popular among planners and engineers in Denmark in the 1930s because the price was prohibitive. Nevertheless, the 1930s saw a massive growth in research of the best solutions for bicycle infrastructure, and many standards were established. Various designs were tested, and the pros and cons dutifully recorded. Many different surfacing solutions were prototyped, such as gravel, bitukalk (a mix of bitumen and chalk), cast asphalt, and cement. The need for infrastructure was determined if there were more than 100 cyclists per hour or at least 100 motor vehicles per hour.
They went into the hills as well. In early examples of direct observation being used to aid bicycle infrastructure planning, research was done on roads with steep inclines, including one of the country’s steepest, with a 10.7 percent grade. They watched to see when cyclists could power up the hill or had to get off and walk. The official recommendation was that bike lanes or cycle tracks should be created for grades between 2.5 percent and 4 percent, depending on the length of the hill.
When the speed limit hits 50 or 60 km/h, it’s time for hard separation.
The many results were published by the Danish Road Laboratory’s Road Committee in 1938 and 1944, so the various road directorates around the country could start working with tested standards.* In the following decades there was a great deal of fine-tuning of these standards—and that continues to this day. Generations of planners have boiled down the designs to something beautiful, simple, and useful.
First, let’s look at the two questions I need to ask. The car volume and the posted speed limit for those cars are the determinants for which type of infrastructure is preferred. The first type of infrastructure is none at all. I live in a densely populated neighborhood at the intersection of two busy streets, but the residential streets behind my apartment are low-volume and traffic-calmed with continuous sidewalks that force cars to slow down. I cycle effortlessly here and so do my kids. Traffic calming that forces motorists to drive more slowly is physical. The street is designed to keep speed down and people safe. In many cities in the United States, on the other hand, posting lower speed limits on streets designed for high speed means absolutely nothing.
Second, when the speed limit hits 40 km/h (25 mph) or the volume of cars rises, painting a lane is an acceptable solution. It is important to note that the lane will run alongside the sidewalk and will be a minimum of 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) wide, running one way on both sides of the street. It must be said that a number of municipalities, especially in and around Copenhagen, will upgrade to the next level because that will ensure a higher level of safety and a sharper increase in the number of cyclists.
Third, when the speed limit hits 50 or 60 km/h (30–37 mph), it’s time for hard separation. Since 1915 in Copenhagen, this has been the curb-separated cycle track that physically protects cyclists from motorized vehicles. It is raised to mid-curb height and also keeps cyclists separated from pedestrians on the other side. This is the gold standard in a city like Copenhagen. Indeed, there are 375 kilometers (233 miles) of curb-separated cycle tracks in the city of Copenhagen and only 33 kilometers (21 miles) of the aforementioned painted lanes. Again, the minimum width is 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) and it should run along the sidewalk, like the painted lanes. Always and forever. On cycle tracks with a higher volume of cyclists, then the cycle track is widened to accommodate them. The unwritten standard for cycle-track width is that you and I can cycle together, having a conversation, and a cargo bike can pass us.
When the speed limit for cars hits 70 km/h (43 mph) or higher, such as highway speeds, there is only one goal: getting cyclists as far away as possible from the motorized traffic. You don’t mix bikes with cars going that fast. You find the space and you create as big a buffer as possible. It is in this category that we allow for bidirectional infrastructure. In Denmark, on-street, bidirectional lanes were found to be substandard back in the 1930s, but they lingered here and there until about 20 years ago, when they were effectively removed from the arsenal. Such bidirectional bike lanes simply aren’t safe enough. When placed in off-street contexts with no contact with cars, however, they are suitable. Like on the Green Path system crossing Copenhagen.
The usual reserved stripes for cyclists, that only separate them from the road with a line, can only be regarded as a surrogate solution.
The highways leading to Copenhagen feature wide bidirectional bike paths on both sides, shielded by trees and at least one meter (three feet) of grass median, as do parks and stretches of roadway along, for example, Copenhagen Harbor. Even in the countryside, space is found, where possible.
When you design something—anything—you have to test whether it serves its intended function. If you think about it, these designs have been through the most rigorous design test phase in history. Hundreds of millions of cyclists have used them for many decades in Denmark and many other countries. An impressive network of cycle tracks was once found in what seems today to be unlikely places. Many British cities readily adopted the designs, as did German cities. Flaws were identified. Improvements were made. I know I keep going on about how we’ve been doing this for a very long time and how best-practice has been thoroughly established. It is of utmost importance to know that cities wanting to improve conditions for bicycles and increase cycling levels have a much shorter journey if they want it.
Cycle track in the suburbs along the #16 highway north of Copenhagen.
In rare instances, painted lanes are used in Copenhagen but they are still a minimum of 2.3 meters wide and parallel to the sidewalk. © Lorenz Siegel
Morning traffic along the #16 highway heading towards Copenhagen.
Traffic-engineering standards for motorized vehicles are largely similar all over the world. Most are flawed, sure, but everyone has agreed upon them. If I travel to any point on the map and want to play soccer or tennis, I won’t have to first learn the intricacies of the field or the court. They are the same everywhere. All sorts of people from all sorts of cultures have agreed what a soccer field or tennis court should look like. The designs have been tested and deemed best-practice. The standards are carved in stone. Shouldn’t it be like this for bicycle infrastructure as well?
I have noticed that large, proud countries suffer from a “not invented here” mentality. Adopting ideas from small countries like Denmark or the Netherlands? Nah. We can do it ourselves. Through this curious peacocking, time is lost doing work that has already been done. Designs that were tossed out decades ago are developed from scratch. New designs that should never see the light of day are presented as “cutting edge” and “innovative.” Hey, bloodletting was once considered a cutting-edge and then mainstream medical treatment for a variety of diseases. That doesn’t mean it worked.
So, four types of infrastructure. I could mic-drop it right there, but I bet you might have some supplementary questions.
The preferred design of bicycle infrastructure past a bus stop in Copenhagen is creating an island for bus passengers. In this situation, cyclists are allowed to continue without stopping and bus passengers wait until the coast is clear. Moving to this design has drastically reduced bus passenger / cyclist conflicts. With that said, there are still bus stops where there is limited space. In these cases, cyclists are obliged to stop to allow bus passengers to embark or disembark. Even when space is limited, the protected cycle track continues parallel to the sidewalk, and while passengers are expected to mix with braking cyclists, the real danger of bus– cyclist interactions is avoided. When Winnipeg, Canada, starts to figure it out, you know it must be—and should be—a thing.
The gold standard is curb-separated cycle tracks. They may seem expensive, but they’re rock-bottom-cheap if you compare them to roads for cars, what with the minimal wear and tear and the fact that the return on investment is quick. A city should be planning for the future, so this is the best solution. My team and I will always recommend this design for our client cities. When faced with financial reality, there are other solutions that we will recommend:
» Modular-concrete curb separation, which allows water drainage and requires no full street rebuild, but still gives real vertical protection;
» Modular-plastic curbs or planters (some of which feature funky built-in footrests);
» Bollards or buoys, which provide good visual separation and help somewhat in keeping cars in their own lane, though they are also easily run over;
» So-called armadillos, which have proved to be effective in cities like Barcelona and Mexico City, especially when they provide a hard edge towards the cars.
Preferred best-practice solution in Copenhagen for a cycle track passing a bus stop. © Lorenz Siegel
There are few great contra-flow solutions running through the heart of the Danish capital. On some streets with low speeds, bikes use the travel lane and a cycle track runs in the opposite direction. On others, cycle tracks feature on both sides. In all cases, high-quality bike traffic lights are in place to manage safety at the intersection.
I’m rather enamored with the shared-space philosophy, and always have been. While it is a great solution for small towns and residential neighborhoods where traffic calming and street design are in place, it is not entirely suitable for transport in a larger city with great numbers of people moving to and fro. Certainly not now or in the near future in cities still under the boot of the automobile. Copenhagen’s pedestrian street network is a fantastic addition to our city. Parallel to the famous Strøget, the city has a shared-space street called Kompagnistrædet (or Strædet, for short). Our offices were at one end for a time. I sailed down the empty street in the morning but avoided it like the plague in the afternoon. While cars and bikes are permitted to use the street, cycling down it was an exercise in trying not to fall off my bike when riding at a snail’s pace. I love the street, absolutely, but it is just a destination rather than a transport corridor. In the United States, I have heard shared space touted as a solution, but by people clearly unwilling to spend money or who don’t understand urban cycling as a transport form. In such cases, shared space is a surrogate, much like the dreadful sharrow.
Contra-flow cycle track against the flow of traffic. Another cycle track is on the opposite side, allowing cyclists to ride with the flow. © Lorenz Siegel
A dry, stale rice cake is better than no food at all if you’re stuck the desert, yes. We can agree on that. And like I’ve said, a chair with two legs will let you rest a bit. But neither is a sustainable solution. By choosing ready-to-implement designs that have been tested and proven to be effective, the chances of success are, quite simply, greater. You don’t choose half-baked versions of the other products you acquire, do you? I would rather ride on a 2- to 3-meter-wide (7- to 10-foot-wide) bidirectional bike lane through a city than be forced to run with the bulls on a street without any infrastructure at all. I get it. But we are planning our cities for the next century, and we need to get it right from the start.
You don’t choose half-baked versions of the other products you acquire, do you?
We also need to understand that our choices now will impact our choices later. Montreal started building a (fragmented) network of bidirectional cycle tracks in the late 1980s. It largely ignores the naturally existing desire lines of the city and sends cyclists on time-consuming detours. Now there is a focus on unidirectional infrastructure, and it’s proving tricky to connect up the two types.
The simplified standards for which type of infrastructure to put in based on car traffic volume and the speed limit for cars.
In cities like Barcelona, hard separation between bikes and cars is achieved by solid blocks bolted into the asphalt.
You might have heard of the American organization NACTO—the National Association of City Transportation Officials. NACTO was developed as a response to AASHTO—the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The epic acronym battle aside, the latter are the engineers, unmoveable in their professional faith and infamously oblivious to bicycles as transport. The former, NACTO, focuses more on planning and creating better conditions for transport in cities. The ballet dancer versus the sumo wrestler. While I like what NACTO is trying to do and I understand their quest in light of the stone-faced opposition, they have misunderstood best-practice. On their website and in their design guides, for example, they promote bike lanes in between the door zone and moving traffic and painted lanes that cross car-travel lanes to allow cars to turn right. Not to mention bidirectional cycle tracks. Much of their inspiration comes from Denmark and the Netherlands—and yet they fail to nail it, or even to provide details for building such treatments. I would prefer a clear and defined approach that features solutions that will get results and form the foundation for the future in a city.
On their website and in their published material they cite best-practice and claim that their inspiration stems from the Netherlands and Britain, but they still happily recommend making bike lanes narrower. It is an example of American bicycle-planning that implements solutions that are not meant to entice people to join cycling for transport, but rather are based on the assumption that “there aren’t enough cyclists now, so they don’t need to pass each other.”
We are planning our cities for the next century, and we need to get it right from the start.
Battling engineering standards with visions and solutions based on design is a noble cause. It is a necessary and welcome development. A similar approach is taking place in Oslo, Norway. When speaking at a transport conference in Trondheim, I gave my usual keynote with focus on design and best-practice. I was followed by Rune Gjøs, the head of Oslo’s Bicycle Office—Sykkelprosjektet—and a third speaker. All of us were speaking the same language about infrastructure. In the Q&A afterwards, an audience member, frustrated and not a little indignant, stood up and asked why Norway didn’t just implement the Danish standards.
A woman from the National Road Directorate, Statens Vegvesen, was tasked with responding to the query. She, too, spoke with an irritated tone, coupled with condescension, and explained that Norway can’t just adopt standards from other countries—she made it sound frivolous—and that the Norwegian standards were there for a reason. She lumped Denmark into an “other countries” category like it was Zimbabwe and not a neighboring nation. Trondheim experimented with protected, curb-separated cycle tracks in the 1990s, and Oslo even had its first cycle track back in 1941, but the National Road Directorate later eliminated them from their carcentric standards.
Oslo decided to react by creating what they call the Oslo Standard. It’s a comprehensive guide to infrastructure that the City of Oslo wants to put into place and that conflicts directly with the archaic national standards. It’s as political as it is practical, but it’s a bold move in the struggle to improve city life.
Previous attempts to explore how to change the standards in Norway were made back in 2012 by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport, which wanted to figure out how Norwegian cities could increase cycling levels. Their usual channel of communication has the Road Directorate on the other end, but the administration was tired of the same-old, same-old answers. They decided to ask someone else. Copenhagenize Design Company, partnering with Civitas, was hired. Five Norwegian cities were selected for comparison with five Swedish and five Danish cities. The methodology behind the Copenhagenize Index was used to explore the differences between the cities. The short version of the results was—surprise, surprise—that the Norwegian cities lacked infrastructure.
As you have probably figured out by now, all this infrastructure has to be part of a cohesive, coherent, and well-designed network. We can agree that a train line that forces you to get off and then walk two kilometers to a station on another train line in order to continue your journey is not a good rail network. The same applies to a bicycle network. Far too many cities are taking baby steps. Trying out one bike lane on one street to see how things go. It’s completely irrelevant. Some other cities claim to have a network, like Berlin and Barcelona, but it there are only bizarre infrastructure designs in vague lines on a map. Luckily, more and more cities are getting the fact that networks are vital.
A quiet residential street with low car traffic volume and no protected infrastructure for bikes. © Lorenz Siegel
Renderings: Copenhagenize Design Company renderings for our client city, Detroit. Courtesy: City of Detroit
An early example is Rio de Janeiro. The city was to host the first Earth Summit in 1992 and, almost as an afterthought, decided to create a cycle track out of a car lane along the iconic Copacabana Beach—a symbolic gesture, since the world was coming to talk climate. After the world left, the next neighborhood, Ipanema, which had seen the cycle track in action, extended it down their own beachfront. Then Leblon followed suit. Rio is still very much a work in progress, but I can now get picked up at the national airport by friends on bikes and can ride the whole 15 kilometers to Leblon on a network of bicycle infrastructure. Which is pretty cool, even if the quality of the cycle tracks isn’t up to par.
A city in the heart of the Russian oilfields, with hard winters, decides to copenhagenize in two short years, and the sixth largest oil company in Russia helps finance the visionary project.
In our work designing the bicycle network for the City of Detroit, creating a network of unidirectional cycle tracks intuitively criss-crossing the downtown core was the key. Throughout the process, we did have to compete with designs from consulting firms that were trying to push for bidirectional cycle tracks through the downtown core. Working in tandem with the City’s passionate team, which was keen on turning the Motor City into the Mobility City, was professionally rewarding and personally inspiring. Detroit now has the framework for redefining itself as a modern transport city.
Calgary, Alberta, had planned a series of pilot projects—seven over seven years—featuring bits and pieces of bike lanes. The City realized that it would be far more effective to pilot the whole network all at once instead of taking baby steps. The results so far are positive, which should come as no surprise. Copenhagenize Design Company was also on the team designing the bicycle and pedestrian strategy for the City of Winnipeg, and I am looking forward to following the developments there as they begin work on their network.
You’ll recall my story about Ljubljana, Slovenia, being ahead of the copy/paste curve in the early seventies. If you liked that tale, you’ll love this one: In 2015, when the City of Almetyevsk, in Tatarstan, Russia, contacted me with the declared goal of becoming Copenhagen in two years, I was skeptical. I am quite familiar with the state of cycling infrastructure in Russian cities. On a global scale, Russia either struggles with it or ignores it altogether. Most often there is a lack of real political will in recognizing the bicycle as a legitimate mode of transportation. In Almetyevsk, however, political will would prove to be the guiding strength. Ayrat Khayrullin is the young, ambitious mayor who acknowledged the importance of a holistic bicycle strategy that values world-class facilities, constructive communication strategies, and, above all, dedicated cycle tracks. From the get-go, Khayrullin expressed an unwavering desire to transform Almetyevsk into the most bicycle-friendly city in Russia, one where he would feel confident sending his young children off to school by bike.
In our preliminary meetings with the city, we quickly agreed on the process and the goals: 200 kilometers (124 miles) of bicycle infrastructure in a cohesive network of best-practice infrastructure. Nothing less. Khayrullin had done his homework. He knew, for example, that on-street, bidirectional cycle tracks were a substandard solution. He understood the importance of establishing a complete network and prioritizing cycling as a transport form. He was well versed in the health benefits of having a cycling population. All he needed was someone to design it. To create the gold-standard bicycle city in Russia.
The entire Copenhagenize Design Company team went to work—not only our staff in our main office in Copenhagen, but others in our offices in Brussels and Montreal as well. Time was short. At our meetings in the city in fall 2015, we were told that they wanted to get to work in spring 2016, when the snow melted. We divided up our work on the bicycle strategy into stages in order to give the City a chance to plan and prepare their engineering department for the work. Their challenge was to figure out how to best use the roadworks season—from April to September—to create the first 50 kilometers (31 miles) of hard infrastructure. The core network along the city’s main streets.
АльмÉтьевск? Yes, Almetyevsk. Let’s create some context for this place. It’s a city of 155,000 people located smack-dab in the middle of Tatarstan—a semi-independent republic in the Russian Federation. Our colleagues in Russia inform us, grudgingly, that Tatarstan is a place where things just get done in an urban-development context. The capital city, Kazan, is the only Russian city to have built a subway system after the collapse of the Soviet Union, although they have done very little for bicycles as transport. As Almetyevsk is projected to grow by 30,000 new residents (many of them young workers and families) by 2030, the administration is looking to improve overall livability and attractiveness. Mayor Ayrat Khayrullin is keen to attract new residents with a life-sized city, as well as to improve the quality of life of the current residents.
He understood the importance of establishing a complete network and prioritizing cycling as a transport form. All he needed was someone to design it.
The city’s built form is characterised by an arterial ring road framing the residential, cultural, and commercial center along a grid-like street network, with Soviet-era roads so wide that they make Salt Lake City’s streets look like the back alleys of Amsterdam. The city center measures eight kilometers from east to west, four kilometers from north to south. In other words, the city’s relatively small footprint, with its dense network of medium- and high-rise residential housing coupled with wide roads, presents plenty of opportunities to accommodate the bicycle as a mode of transport.
Photos from Copenhagenize Design Company client city, Almetyevsk, featuring newly paved cycle tracks, a garbage can for cyclists, and a bicycle parade. Photos: City of Almetyevsk
When we first arrived in the city, we were amazed at how many pedestrians there were—something you don’t often see in Russian cities. In addition, a thriving trolley bus system is a main transport form. As we know, these two elements are prerequisites when designing for bikes. All the great bicycle cities in the world have excellent public transport and a strong pedestrian culture.
A place where the young and old, rich and poor, can cycle alongside one another on a safe and connected network of best-practice bicycle infrastructure.
The financing of this phase of the project was a unique public–private partnership. Tatarstan’s national oil company, TatNeft, bought into the idea early on, and their enthusiastic backing—both moral and financial—was key to the project’s success. Their headquarters are in Almetyevsk as well. It only makes the storytelling better. A city in the heart of the Russian oilfields, with hard winters, decides to copenhagenize in two short years, and the sixth-largest oil company in Russia helps finance the visionary project.
Like some Russian cities, Almetyevsk had dabbled in bike infrastructure, but, as is often the case, half-steps and compromises have only led to conflicts. The City was quite open in admitting the shortcomings of their existing infrastructure. The shared pedestrian/bike spaces often resulted in confusion and conflicts, while the cycle tracks contained within a new development district didn’t connect to the greater city network. In fact, conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists in 2014 heightened the public discussion around the role of cyclists in Almetyevsk, prompting the mayor and his colleagues to look abroad for experienced help, rather than simply crack down on cyclist behavior.
After multiple site visits for consultation, documentation, and data collection, we returned to Copenhagen to begin our analysis. Taking a detailed look at the city, with tried-and-true methodologies, we built up a thorough understanding of the city, developing an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the development of a connected network of bicycle infrastructure. We analyzed the connectivity of the network, the destinations and origins, intermodal linkages, road typologies, and, beyond all that, gradually building up an understanding of how best-practice bicycle infrastructure could fit into the city streets of Almetyevsk. Perhaps one of the more transformative events of the whole process was welcoming the mayor and a small team to Copenhagen for a private master class. Through workshops, talks, guest speakers, and bicycle tours, we opened their eyes to how best-practice infrastructure really functions. Nothing beats watching wide-eyed traffic engineers and planners wake up to the potential of the bicycle.
With a strong baseline understanding of Almetyevsk and a freshly inspired project team in the city, we developed a vision for a not-so-distant future Almetyevsk: “A place where the young and old, rich and poor, can cycle alongside one another on a safe and connected network of best-practice bicycle infrastructure.” Some more quantifiable goals will help in guiding this vision forward into the future:
» There will be 50 kilometers (31 miles) of protected bicycle network built within the first year.
» Almetyevsk’s bicycle modal share will reach 10 percent within the next five years.
» Twenty percent of schoolchildren will be cycling to school within five years.
» Cycling will be just as popular among women as men.
» Cycling in Almetyevsk will be safer than ever before.
» Winter maintenance will be prioritized.
Working off our baseline insights study and a guiding vision, we worked alongside a project team in Almetyevsk to develop the city’s first Bicycle Strategy, one that guided the city forward in laying out 50 kilometers (31 miles) of bicycle infrastructure in 2016. Laying out an appropriate first-phase network and addressing smaller design details appropriate for each identified street typology. Details such as bus-stop treatments, major and minor intersection treatments, and appropriate bicycle-parking solutions were explained. Complementing the physical infrastructure, our strategy also laid out soft-infrastructure strategies, turning towards communication campaigns to encourage cycling, school and workplace programming, public events, and future engagement campaigns aiming to get people on their bikes for the first time, a critical step in expanding ridership.
Construction on the project began in late May 2016, coinciding with Russia’s annual bicycle parade day and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Upon our arrival in the city on that visit, we did numerous site visits and saw how the foundations were already laid for several kilometers of bicycle infrastructure. It was an amazing sight.
The next day, however, was unforgettable. Over 1,000 residents on bikes came out for a bicycle parade through the city. We stopped at a location on the main thoroughfare, Lenina Street, where an asphalt machine was waiting. Together with Mayor Ayrat Khayrullin and former heavyweight boxing world champion—and current member of the national parliament—Nikolai Valuev, I shoveled cement into the foundation for the first bicycle sign, spread asphalt on the first stretch of cycle track, and watched as young activists pressed a large red button to start the paving machines. Billboard campaigns for the City’s vision hung above locations where the infrastructure would soon be rolled out—a part of the City’s comprehensive communication campaign.
There were hurdles to overcome along the way. While political leadership was key, traffic engineers still needed convincing.
Implementing bicycle infrastructure and facilities in Russia had its challenges. There is nothing in Russian road standards about best-practice bike infrastructure (but there will be now), as the city engineers kept mentioning at the beginning, before political leadership took the reins once and for all. The quality asphalt required for cycle tracks existed, but nevertheless the City conducted a series of outdoor tests to make sure they had selected the right kind (they had). Along a piloting stretch of road, the director of transportation in Almetyevsk showed us the different materials, surface treatments, and signage they were trying out. They hadn’t had any luck finding a supplier of bicycle traffic signals in Russia. So what did they do? They made their own, using vinyl stickers and traditional signals. They made bicycle railings and footrests and tilted garbage cans for cyclists as well. Taking their lessons from our Copenhagen master class, the director and his staff had begun experimenting and, as a result, pushing the boundaries of the status quo on Russian roads.
There were hurdles to overcome along the way. While political leadership was key, traffic engineers still needed convincing. In order to perform studies about density, connectivity, space syntax analyses, etc., Copenhagenize Design Company needed local data, but Russian cities do not have the same data-gathering culture as, for example, Scandinavian cities. In addition, a lot of the existing data was classified as secret—echoes of the Cold War persist. Nevertheless, the challenges were overcome. At the end of the day, the City of Almetyevsk turned out to be the most amazing client. We would receive emails from the street, where asphalt machines were rumbling along, to double-check about how to proceed—followed by photos the next day showing what had been done. That kind of client relationship is like nothing we’ve ever dreamed of. Every night since May we knew that when we woke up in the morning, more meters of fresh asphalt in the form of best-practice cycle track would be cooling off in the dry Almetyevsk air—and the quality of life in the city had improved.
Mayor Ayrat Khayrullin hasn’t restricted himself to bicycle infrastructure either. In 2015, together with Kazan design agency Evolution, he created Shamsinur—an urban park that has become an amazing destination for the citizens. In 2016, a massive lake park with a sandy beach opened in the city as well.
“There are only two problems in Russia: fools and roads.” We just might have finally solved the latter.
By establishing themselves as first movers within Russia (and beyond), Almetyevsk has garnered attention from policy makers who may be weary of looking outside the Federation for best-practice. By seriously investing in a network of dedicated bicycle infrastructure, Almetyevsk has firmly positioned itself as the gold standard for a bicycle-friendly city in Russia, simply by learning from over 100 years of best-practice infrastructure in Denmark. Knowledge transfer at its finest. And it doesn’t stop here. The City looks forward to building a total of more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) of infrastructure that will connect all neighborhoods and beyond.
There is a centuries-old saying in Russian that everyone knows: “There are only two problems in Russia: fools and roads.” Copenhagenize Design Company and the City of Almetyevsk just might have finally solved the latter. It is a wild ride that continues into 2017 and beyond. Quite possibly the most exciting urban design project in the world at the moment. If you build it, they will come. In the most unlikely places. And in Almetyevsk, they are coming by bike.
The existing bicycle superhighway routes in Greater Copenhagen (orange) and the proposed routes (black).
The Greater Copenhagen network superimposed on a map of Paris.
Many cities are expanding on their growing urban network for bikes by developing infrastructure that leads farther out. The Copenhagen Capital Region is building a bicycle superhighway network that extends out into the suburbs. Five hundred kilometers (300 miles) are planned, and the first 200 kilometers (124 miles) are already financed. Many of the municipalities are on board, but they still need inspiration, nudging, or even shoving. My team developed an idea catalogue featuring ideas that municipalities can choose from. Original ideas but also many that have been harvested from the global narrative. It took some convincing, but the Danish Road Directorate finally agreed to specialized signage, logos, and wayfinding as part of the continued development.
Strasbourg, for decades France’s leading bicycle city, is another example. They are designing a comprehensive network to complement their existing infrastructure. Three ring roads and ten superhighways leading in and out of the city. I designed the logo and visual identity for the City, choosing graphics that have more of a public-transport feel to them, instead of clichéd bike imagery. That’s what a network for bicycles should feel like: public transport.
Wayfinding pictogram letting cyclists know they are on a bicycle superhighway route in Copenhagen. © James Thoem
All in all, a good street is one where no one gets killed and users actually get healthy by using it.
I worked on three projects for the Irish National Transport Authority focused on improving conditions for cyclists in Dublin. One of them was exploring the possibility of a bicycle super-highway along the River Dodder. Some cities are jumping the gun and going straight for the sexy, headline-grabbing bicycle superhighway concept first but neglecting to build the hardwired infrastructure in the city center that should form the foundation for all expansion.
All in all, a good street is one where no one gets killed and users actually get healthy by using it. That should be the goal for every city. We know how to do it. It’s all been invented. Excuses ring more and more hollow for every day that passes.
* The historical references were translated freely from an article by Mette Schønberg, former head of Denmark’s Road and Bridge Museum, in Danske Vejhistorisk Selskabs magazine Trafik & Veje, September 2009.
