Top 10 Bicycle-Friendly Design Elements in Copenhagen

Chapter 09: Desire lines

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

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

but desire lines are as old as Homo sapiens.

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.

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

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

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

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

Desire lines vs. master plans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desire lines - democracy in motion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in order to get to a parallel street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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