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Top 10 Bicycle-Friendly Design Elements in Copenhagen

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Chapter 09: Desire lines

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Desire lines has been the most beautiful expression in urban planning.

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Its was coined by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in 1950's in his book The Poetics of Space,

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but desire lines are as old as Homo sapiens.

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All the winding streets of old cities were based on the desires lines of the people who first mounted in to the area and settled there.

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Desire lines are been used as a concept in landscape planning, in parks and what not,

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figuring out where to put the pathways based on the desire lines of the people who walk through the park.

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But we discovered desire line in our applyment into urban planning,

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and bicycle planning and bicycle urbanism in the cities, that we were working in.

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Desire lines vs. master plans

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We all know from cities around the world, the focus is placed on these master plans,

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these grand documents, that are produced, a lot of money is spent on them,

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showing us what the vision of the future will be for the city, projecting traffic flow and what not.

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By and large, they are produced using computer models and projections and data and statistics.

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Makes you feel like you're a character in The Matrix.

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Master plans, if you look at this, really ? this, are a large waste of money,

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there are more effective ways of planing our cities for people.

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Desire lines - democracy in motion

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There are many sublte examples also around the city as well,

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The city of Copenhagen, the Bicycle office, they are putting ramps,

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asphalt ramps, on spots, where people are taking shortcuts,

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instead of the wrecking fences, to restrict them in this behavior,

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they actually make it accessible for them, make it easier for them.

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Because the people, at the end of the day, decide, where they want to go.

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The one of the examples I like to point out more than anything is on the world's busiest bicycle street.

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The city discovered, that a couple of hundred cyclist a day were cutting across a sidewalk in front of a building,

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in order to get to a parallel street.

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In order to avoid the rush hour of all the bicycle traffic but also because they were going to different destinations in the city.

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What to do? We could stood there all day long and handed out tickets,

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penalizing people for the behavior, crossing the sidewalk on the bicycles.

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But instead, the city of Copenhagen, to their credit, they stood back and watched.

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Accepting the fact, that there must be a very good reason for the behavior.

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A temporary cycle track was put in the place and then it was finally made permanent.

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And the desire lines of just a few hundred people in city were respected

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and the infrastructure that was put in the place based on them.

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And this is really the way forward for designing our cities for people, for bicycle traffic.

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By using basic human observation, direct human observation, we have much more effective route planning in our cities

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and the movements of the people who would live there, the desire lines of the citizens, with whom we share the landscape.

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