A thread for a cold winter’s night... #ThrowbackThursday to our 2015 summer trip to Europe. It was eye opening to see how amazing cities can be for people that bike and walk. It started on one of the hottest days of summer in Copenhagen. Everyone was at the beach.
I mean seriously, I think the entire city of Copenhagen biked to the beach this warm summer day.
Copenhagen at the time had this amazing bike share system with electric bikes. The ebikes allowed us to bike 14 km along the coast out to the old hunting ground of the royal family that were now a massive park
And the park was completely bike friendly, you could go anywhere... Including right up to the not so shabby former hunting lodge of the King.
Biking back into Copenhagen you couldn’t help but notice how simple yet effective the bike infrastructure was. Just a curb and a wide raised lane for people to bike along with a nice sidewalk.
They also had Car2Go car sharing in Copenhagen at the time. I really miss these amazing Smart Cars, we also used to have them in Denver and they were great and the perfect when you needed them. I love the writing on this one... you don’t have to speak Danish to understand.
The urban parks in Copenhagen were AMAZING! From the landscape architecture to the care taken to maintain them, they were such great public spaces. I think this one was called the King’s Garden.
You know how we have these massive mall parking lots several football fields large here in the US? Check out the mall parking in upscale Fredericksberg. Cherry Creek Mall eat your heart out.
The efficiency of the bike parking in the middle of downtown and really all over Copenhagen just blew me away. You know how big of a garage you’d need to fit this many cars? And by the way, everyone just had simple frame locks. I never saw massive unlocks or chains on bikes.
We did a day trip to Malmo, Sweden- super easy to get to via train (public transport is so good we never got in a car the 10 days in Europe). Check out this cyclist airbag they were selling in a store. Very stylish.
Onto Amsterdam where we caught the evening rush hour of bikes coming off the river ferry. It struck me how many more women and families biked here. When the infrastructure is better it makes it inclusive for everyone.
Check out this outdoor bike storage unit in front of homes in Amsterdam. Talk about an amazing way to store sustainable transportation like bikes in an urban environment. Can fit 4 bikes into the space of half of one car parking spot.
And people would just bike up and leave their bikes right on their front porch. Check out the kid’s seat on the back of this gorgeous Dutch bike. When the infrastructure is good, people use bikes to move their kids around too.
In Amsterdam the parks were vibrant and incredible. I loved the restaurants throughout Vondlepark that brought people together. And they didn’t have any cars in the park or parking inside of them yet they thrived.
My favorite memory of the trip was biking through the massive park Amsterdamse Bos with my wife. It was so much fun exploring the forest with her on bikes.
We took the train down to Belgium and got to bike the Flanders countryside. Look how narrow the roads are here. It makes it so drivers simply can’t go fast. The way it should be. Lots of elders biking here too because it was comfortable for them to do so.
Even the little town squares in places like Damme, Belgium were full of people riding their bikes. I count about 20 bikes in the space of 3 parking spots here.
We spent the last night in Belgium in Brussels, where they closed down, not just one street, but an entire section of the city from cars so people could walk around.
And the businessess were thriving in downtown Brussels because tourists and locals alike flocked to the area where the streets were closed from cars for the summer because it was so pleasant.
So that was our trip to Europe. We visited cities where people of all ages & genders were biking without stress. They are cities designed to move people, not just cars. We can have more sustainable transportation here in the US too, we just need the willpower to make it happen.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Live tweeting some highlights from the @DenBicycleLobby meetup with Prof. @greg_shill - Talking about his paper- "Should the law subsidize driving". Greg lived in Denver in 2013-2014. Didn't have a car when he lived here.
Driving is both a public health and a climate crises problem. Noted that "secondhand driving" is an issue. Even if you don't drive, you are exposed to the air pollution.
Over 100 people are killed per day by car crashes. Serious crash injuries from cars occur once every 7 seconds. Early data showing during COVID, crash deaths and crash rates are both increasing.
Four years ago today @kdb2001 and I had a 2 day old son. We were so happy but exhausted. We were about to leave Rose Hospital to go home and a nurse came by our room to tell us there was a man with a gun at the hospital and to barricade the door and shelter inside.
Those next 20 minutes were absolutely terrifying. We had no idea what was about to happen & we were so sacred that something could happen to us & our newborn son. Being in Colorado there is always a fear that Columbine, Aurora, or Bailey, or Colorado Springs could happen again.
At one point we heard the person with the gun was on the roof so we tried to squeeze into the corner of the room furthest away from windows and the door. Wondering what might come for us from either side.
Just downloaded recent data on traffic fatalities in Denver. You can its mostly on arterial streets like Federal, Alameda, Colfax, Colorado Blvd, Evans, Sheridan. Our desire to move cars quickly on 4-6 lane roads in an urban environment is killing ppl. google.com/maps/d/edit?mi…
CDOT is talking about expanding I-25 in the name of safety at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars when the reality is that many more people are dieing on arterial streets. Our best investment if we really care about safety and #VisionZero is on our arterial streets.
I was inspired to download this data last night because a person from my church was killed by a driver that ran a red light on one of these arterials last week while he was crossing in his wheel chair. Everyone of these dots has a name every dot has a story. This was Tim’s...
THIS MAN WAS NOT A STATISTIC. HIS NAME WAS TIM. He went to my church. I can't believe he is gone. He was such a kind soul. I feel so much for his family. He was just on a zoom call with everyone at church last week. Traffic violence is so real. So many deaths on West Colfax.
He was an usher & a liturgist at our church. Was always happy to talk to you and always had his sweet dog Bella with him. We had conversations about how bad sidewalks are in Denver and how he had to go in the street because of it. He kept a high viz vest on his wheelchair.
He told me about the struggle years ago to use public transit on RTD for people with disabilities on how bad it was, and how many of the sidewalk ramps in Denver are still not ADA compliant and how dangerous they were for his wheel chair. He was such a nice man. So tragic.
Driver going down the car free open street the wrong way tonight on Lakeshore Drive and then the sidewalk.
@DenverDOTI@denverparksrec could we please put back up the 2nd barricade at west entrance? 2nd time I’ve seen a confused driver this week.
This is what it used to look like and what it looked like today when driver went down it after 2nd sign was removed recently by the city. Really confusing as there is no road closed sign and drivers can go around it now since only one sign.
Or could you all please consider changing it from a road closed to through traffic sign to a road closed sign? Thanks for the consideration.