UPDATE 10 OCT 2014

The Copenhagen bike share bikes we talk about in this article have been on the streets for a few months now. The goal is that each bike is used 3 times a day - by local commuters. So far they are used 0.8 times a day - by tourists. Oops. Fail.

These $10,000 shiny toys are already a tourist gimmick - like the originals in Copenhagen - and that does not encourage locals to use them. Locals never want to looks like tourists.

Keep reading for more rationality. ----------

While La Rochelle, France can boast about having started the first proper bike share system in the mid-1970s, Copenhagen introduced the Bycyklen - City Bike - in 1995. Picture above and below, the bikes were cute gimmicks that lasted until late 2012. They worked on a shopping trolley system - put a 10 or 20 kroner coin in and get it back when you return it. The bikes were horrible to ride and it didn't take long for them to become tourist magnets. Most Copenhageners wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole.

They were, however, visionary in their own quirky way and paved the cycle track for the systems that are now featured in 500 odd cities around the world. And as goofy as they were, I found myself missing them when they were gone.

The City of Copenhagen started pondering the idea of getting a Next Generation bike share system back in 2009. We announced the launch of a bike share design competition here on the blog on September 1, 2009. On December 11, 2009, the winners of the competition were announced in Copenhagen. It was never the idea that the winning bike would become the actual bike share bike. The City was just keen to get all sorts of ideas in.

The hype soon died out and time dragged on. New politicians showed up who were less bicycle-friendly and the new bike share system idea was down-prioritised. Then the idea got dusted off again and the Danish State Railways (DSB) started taking the lead. A bid went out for concrete proposals. Designs came in. A shortlist was settled upon. Finally, a design was selected. A new system is scheduled to hit the streets of Copenhagen in October 2013. There has been a lot of talk about taking bike share to Generation 3. Maintaining Copenhagen's role as an innovation powerhouse regarding bicycle culture. I have a filter about bold declarations from the City but I harboured a secret desire to see Copenhagen select a bicycle design for the new bike share that was something different and something that respected the historical aspects of our bicycle culture. A bicycle that was somehow traditional in its design and far removed from the plastic fantastic bike share systems in other cities. A design that rejects the goofy technological overcomplication our society is riddled with. Something that adhered to the principles of Danish Design. Simple, elegant, functional. There are now 650 cities around the world with bike share systems. The Dutch Railways have had the OV Fiets system at all train station for 10 years, which works brilliantly.

So, what will we end up with?

Here's the design from Go Bike.dk. Which just looks like a bicycle from UR Bikes, to me, but hey.

It's a little, geeky, overcomplicated bundle of tech-solutions, including a tablet screen onto which you punch in your credit card info, as well as look up train times and even gps-based routes to restaurants, cinemas, etc.

First thoughts? - Do we really want people unfamiliar to cycling in our city staring at a screen as they ride around? - The tires are solid rubber! 650 bike share systems in the world and we get the one with solid rubber tires - in a city of cobblestones. Unbelievable.

- There's a motor. E-bikes are the new scooters. We don't need more scooters. Sending people unfamiliar with e-bikes into a densely-populated city filled with bicycles is just stupid. Read more about the big grain of salt we need for e-bikes here on the blog in the E-Bike Sceptic article.

- The price for most bike share bikes in the world is about $800. These bikes are about $10,000 each. Seriously. - Testing a wacky, overcomplicated system in a city where everyone owns bikes is not a clever way to play with taxpayers money.

- It's not even free. It costs 20 kroner per hour (about $4.00) (25 kroner if you turn on the e-motor (about $5.00)). You can rent a bicycle for 6 hours at Baisikeli for 60 kroner.

- Whoever came up with the idea for a tablet screen obviously doesn't spend much time in the Copenhagen nightlife. It's going to become a game to see how they can be smashed while parked at the stations. You read it here first.

In Denmark we have a new public transport travel card called Rejsekortet. A billion kroner was invested in a really crappy solution - similar to London's Oyster Card but just super crappy - in a country where smartphones and debit cards rule. The Oyster Card was used as the inspiration and now it looks like that billion kroner was a waste - travel cards like the Oyster may soon be obsolete. So why the tablet? Useless.

The bicycles will also be equipped with an e-motor. First thought? Do we really want people unfamiliar with the city - or locals unfamiliar with e-motors - riding around the city at higher speeds? E-bikes are the new scooters. You don't want to be the new scooters, believe me. People flying along at 25 - 30 km/h in a city where the average speed is 16 km/h. This isn't going to end well. You can read about The E-Bike Sceptic right here on this blog. There's a very good reason that so many Chinese are banning e-bikes. It's called preventing injury and death.

The design? Nothing special. Nothing visionary or innovative. Not an interesting symbol for the City of Copenhagen or the City of Cyclists. Clearly inspired by Dutch brand Van Moof.

The cost? Over 600 cities around the world have bike share systems with bikes that cost around $800. These bikes will cost around $10,000. Seriously. Complete waste of money for an experiment, especially when you're playing with taxpayer financing. It's not surprising that Copenhagen City Council weren't big fans of the idea when they had to negotiate the budget. The original price that DSB wanted the City to pay was 114 million kroner ($20.7 million) but the politicians whittled that down to a token 40 million kroner ($7.2 million). The remainder went to infrastructure - something people actually need in Copenhagen. The cost of using one of these bikes? In most cities, the first 30 minutes on bike share bikes is free. These new bikes in Copenhagen will cost 20 kroner ($3.60) per hour.  25 kroner ($4.50) if you hit the switch to activate the e-motor. One person involved with the company admitted to us that, at 30 kg, the bikes are almost too heavy to cycle without the motor. You can also get a subscription that will cost you 70 kroner/month ($12.75), but still no free ride like on the rest of the planet.

The saturation? 1260 bicycles in 60 stations. Not that impressive. Makes you wonder why the DSB didn't just adopt the Dutch OV Fiets system that the Dutch Railways have going on. An established, successful business model serving the Dutch for a decade so far. If you're incapable of doing anything interesting yourself, then at least copy from people who have experience.

While we're on the topic, why not just get an established company who have done bike share in other cities to do the bike share system for you? Save time, money and minimize your risk of screwing up. Especially since we're in uncharted territory with putting in a bike share system in a city where everyone already owns bikes.

Yeah, okay. I'm not a fan. Like Socrates said, "Necessity is the Mother of invention." I've ridden almost every bike share bike on the planet, in over 30 cities. There is stuff out there that works. Trying to reinvent the wheel with overcomplication isn't clever, isn't cool, isn't cost-efficient. What makes it worse for me, personally, is that I know that my secret desire for coolness, tradition and style married to functionality in a new Copenhagen bike share system actually exists. One of the designs shortlisted for the bid produced a bicycle that makes me swoon. So what bicycle did we almost get? Sigh. Here it is.

Danish bike brand Velorbis teamed up with HomePort Bikesharing Solutions to produce the bike share bicycle above. They simply took the iconic Short John (delivery bike) and all its inherent tradition and historical relevance and made it into a bike share bicycle. A bicycle that was the backbone of bicycle deliveries in this city for over half a century.

Here's another variation of their design. This is the bicycle I imagined when dreaming of a modern icon for our bicycle culture.

They were shortlisted, so I'm assuming that all the tech-specs were in order if they made it that far. The solar panels are a nice touch.

I'm not, however, going to bang on about the tech factors and all that. I just lament the fact that we were this close to getting a cool, iconic bicycle that salutes our bicycle history and culture and that still provided a modern bike share system for Danish cities.

Sigh.

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia. Photo: Ezequiel Cabrera/Wikipedia

The coming boom in batteries to electric cars and Lazy Bikes (electric-assist bicycles) means a boom in batteries with which to run them. A new race for natural resources has begun.

Enter Lithium, the world's lightest metal. For 150 years it's been nickel and lead that have been used in batteries but the advent of lithium technology has allowed for a revolution. Longer battery life, lighter batteries in our laptaps and mobile phones and iPods. Lithium weighs 1/20th of what nickel and lead do.Lithium is also used in anti-depressive medicine, ceramics and nuclear power. With all this talk of electric cars and bicycles, the demand for lithium is on the verge of exploding. Lithium is the new oil.

Enter Boliva. This developing country sits on at least half of the world's supply of lithium, most of it in underground salt layers beneath the world's largest salt flats in Salar de Uyuni, in south-west Boliva. Between 50% and 70% of all the lithium in the world, according to some studies. Most of the lithium in the world comes from Argentina, Chile, China and Australia at the moment. Bolivia is Lithium Central but the country's lithium production is still in the early stages of development.

Whoever figured out that it was Boliva that was sitting atop all that lithium must have pumped their fist in the air and hissed "Yes!" Thank goodness it's a developing country. There's money to be made and there's nothing more irritating than developed nations getting richer when it can be corporations.

In order for the electric car boom to happen - literally - supplies of lithium need to be secured and protected. Toyota recently entered into a collaboration with an Australian mining company and invested $100 million in order to ensure they have supplies from mines in another developing nation, Argentina. Others will soon follow suit. The whole Better Place project that hopes to place 100,000 electric cars in Denmark and Israel within 5 years will be a dead fish if there is no sufficient lithium supply.

There are sceptics who fear that lithium will be placed on a pedestal like oil was/is and become a leading strategic natural resource. The Lithium War sounds rather sci-fi, doesn't it? But wars and natural resources have a tendency to go hand in hand. Some warn that the world will run out of lithium within a few decades. There is still masses of research underway to develop more efficient batteries using old school nickel and lead. Then there are those who say that there is more than enough lithium to go around. Between 18-20 million tonnes in Bolivia alone. Enough for more than 5 billion electric cars (not a reassuring thought). Globally, there is about 35 million tonnes of lithium at the moment.Others name lithium as a world-changing resource because there may be many more uses for it. Lithium can be harvested from sea-water, although in smaller amounts.Some experts have warned that the demand for lithium will escalate dramatically and prices will rise fast and furious if Bolivia doesn't start producing enough lithium to satisfy the automobile industry. The whole electric car revolution could fall flat on it's face and that would render Bolivia's lithium reserves worthless and there goes the 'Next Middle East' and 'New Saudi Arabia' hopes.There are many big question marks regarding exploiting the stores of lithium under the Bolivan Salar de Uyuni. Environmental impact is one, of course. Harvesting lithium is, apparently, not as nasty as oil. But when heavy industry moves into remote areas of the world to get busy, the result is rarely pretty.At the moment, the Bolivian government is reluctant to allow foreign companies access to the lithium adventure. Which is understandable, really. They are quickly developing a small facility to suck up the lithium from the underground and it is expected to be fully-functional this summer. Next step is a mammoth facility, roads and infrastructure, electricity, et al. The country's goal is a yearly production of 30,000 tonnes within a couple of years, which is about 30% of the global market. The country aims to produce batteries for cars by 2014.The Lithium Adventure has begun. How it ends depends. Unfortunately we know all to well the result when corporations and nations gear up for securing natural resources. All I can say is thank goodness I have a bicycle with a "rye bread motor" (rugbrødsmotor) as we call it in Danish. Just feed me rye bread and I'll pedal.

Via: Greenpacks as well as the excellent article in Politiken by Søren Kitaj from 28.03.2010.

Elevated cycle track network - Netherlands 1950s.

Read more about how London is becoming the Village Idiot of Urban Innovation with other ideas like this one.

There's been a bit of chatter of late about a (not very) new idea for bicycle "infrastructure" in London. None other than architect Norman Robert Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank, OM Kt, has dusted off a student's idea and launched it upon an unsuspecting world.

Rendering of the Sky Cycle Now of course this isn't a good idea. This is classic Magpie Architecture. Attempting to attract people to big shiny things that dazzle but that have little functional value in the development of a city. Then again, Foster is a master of building big shiny things. Ideas like these are city killers. Removing great numbers of citizens who could be cycling down city streets past shops and cafés on their way to work or school and placing them on a shelf, far away from everything else. All this in a city that is so far behind in reestablishing cycling as transport that it's embarrassing. With most of the population already whining about bicycles on streets, sticking them up in the air, out of the way, is hardly going to help returning bicycles to the urban fabric of the city. With urban planning, now more than ever before, heading back to the future - back to when cities were life-sized places with rational and practical solutions for moving people around - ideas like these stand out like a sore thumb.

As Canadian author Chris Turner said on Twitter:

"You say that as if Foster and the starchitect league have ever attempted to understand how streets work in general."

Indeed.

Foster grew up on this street south of Manchester, back in an age when Manchester had around 20% modal share for bicycles. Instead of realising that modern urban planning is seeking to return our cities to their pre-car state, he insists on dishing up city-killing, Bladerunner fantasies. You would hope that Foster would seek back to his roots and embrace the kind of city he grew up in.

The first things that popped into my head upon hearing of this idea:

The Price

£220 million pounds for the first 6 km stretch from Stratford to Liverpool Street? Seriously? For that price any urban planning firm could propose a world-beating transport plan for London, the city could pay to implement it and there would still be change leftover for schools, social programmes or whatever else. What an obscene amount of money to spend on Magpie Architecture.

Bicycle Anthropology

I've read that the estimated average speed would be 24 km/h up there in the Sky. The average speed for Citizen Cyclists in Copenhagen and Amsterdam is 15 km/h. That's the speed that a few hundred thousand people sub-consciously settle upon whilst cycling through a city. There are those who go faster, sure, but understanding basic bicycle anthopology should be at the forefront of our thinking. Bicycles belong at street level. Bicycle users are just pedestrians on wheels, not to be confused with motorised traffic. Creating safe, separated infrastructure on our streets is the way forward. Back to the future. Bicycles are the most effective and powerful tool we have for re-building our liveable cities. The Sky Cycle seems to focus on the 1%. The spandexian demographic. It will never get built, of that we can be certain, but if play Foster's fantasy game, there would be a few bicycle users using it. But nowhere near the numbers that have been predicted.

The Sky Cycle idea also disregards another basic fact in city transport. Decades of experience in Denmark and the Netherlands has determined that the majority of bicycle users will cycle up to seven kilometres. The number of bicycle users drops dramatically in the 8-15 km zone. Indeed, under 10% of bicycle commuters entering the City of Copenhagen are coming from the 8-15 km zone. The Bicycle Superhighway project in Copenhagen, aimed at upgrading existing infrastructure in this zone in order to encourage more to cycle from this zone is a great idea, but they are only expecting an increase of about 10,000 cyclists when it's completed. A great number, to be sure, but unlike the Sky Cycle project that boasts of the 5.8 million Londoners living within 10 minutes of the Sky Cycle, they are realistic about numbers of potential bicycle users and their behaviour.

Oh, and in doing so they will spend between £45 million and £96 million. Not for a 6 km stretch, but for 28 routes through 20 municipalities of a total of 500 km in length that will span the entire network spanning the entire Greater Copenhagen region. The Sky Cycle will be the greatest transport flop in history, simply because it fails to understand the importance of bicycle traffic in urban planning. Also because it's a stupid idea, but hey.

New Wine in Old Bottles

It's not a new idea. Look at the drawing at the very top. Stuff like this has been around for awhile. Has it ever been built? No. Rationality ended up winning the day. The California Cycleway in Pasadena, built in 1900, was a similar idea, one that provided an A to B route from Pasadena to Los Angeles, but even it only lasted a couple of years and ended up being sold for lumber.

The City of Calgary has had a pedestrian walkway system in their downtown core since 1970 called Plus 15. Another city-killing idea that strangles street life. I can recommend watching waydowntown, the urban planning mockumentary by Gary Burns, which is unflattering towards the Plus 15, to say the least.

Just Do What Other Cities are Doing Funny how the rising stars of bicycle urbanism like Paris, New York, Chicago, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Dublin, Seville, etc etc, haven't bothered with lofty starchitect visions. They just rolled up their sleeves, dusted off their rationality and started tackling their urban problems with infrastructure and traffic calming measures.

While Foster and too many others are obsessed with commuting instead of bicycle culture, others cities are on the fast track to going back to the future. Using far less money and getting far better results much quicker.

Absolutely everything we need to reestablish the bicycle as transport and to modernise our cities into more liveable urban spaces has already been invented a century ago.

De 28 ruter på samlet set ca 500 km. rutenet, er vurderet til at koste mellem 413 mio. kr og 875 mio. kr - See more at: http://www.cykelsuperstier.dk/content/faq#sthash.yrYcuNX1.dpuf

De 28 ruter på samlet set ca 500 km. rutenet, er vurderet til at koste mellem 413 mio. kr og 875 mio. kr - See more at: http://www.cykelsuperstier.dk/content/faq#sthash.yrYcuNX1.dpuf

Unlike so many others dazzled by the fact that this idea has been pushed forward by Norman Robert Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank, OM Kt, I refuse to be blinded. It's a ridiculous idea that shits all over the efforts of so many of my colleagues around the world who know better.

Remember, this, Norm... you're only as good as your latest idea.

As I highlight in this TED x Zurich talk of mine about Bicycle Culture by Design, Copenhagen has the world’s best behaved cyclists. Bar none. I’ve cycled in close to 100 cities around the world and I’ve never seen anything that comes close. Citizens in any city do not - contrary to popular perception - wander around all day looking for laws to break.

Wherever you happen to be reading this from, you’re probably aware of the general perception of “those damned cyclists”. Even here in Copenhagen, the perception persists, not least from the Copenhagen Police and their one-man wrecking crew. They - and he - continue to spread personal perceptions about cycling citizens. 52% of the citizens in Copenhagen ride each day and most of the others have bikes that they use regularly. We are dealing with basically the entire population of a European city. The police are out of their league when it comes to behaviour perception.

This perception is as old as the bicycle itself. One of Denmark’s most loved satirists and cartoonists Storm P. (Robert Storm Petersen), a daily bicycle user, highlighted with great Danish irony the silliness of such perceptions in his piece A New Traffic Etiquette for Cyclists - in 1934. Things haven’t changed. The whining minority still whines about the cycling majority. A sign that we need to change the paradigm of planning to prioritise intelligent forms of transport, instead of merely accepting the car-centric status quo that we inherited from a previous century.

Behaviour hasn’t changed for over 100 years - and won’t be changing anytime soon. Here’s my baseline: We can’t very well expect bicycle users to adhere to a traffic culture and traffic rules engineered to serve the automobile, now can we? It is like expecting badminton players to use the rules of squash. Every single moment of every single day, the citizens of our cities are communicating with us. They are sending messages about the urban space they inhabit and it is of utmost importance that we listen to every communication. Unfortunately, planning and engineering are often too self-absorbed and arrogant to answer the calls of the citizens. Desire Lines are democracy in action and democracy in motion. They are, however, more than merely the mobility patterns of our citizens. They are the physical manifestation of much of the communication from our tireless army of urban cartographers. I find them to be quite beautiful. Not to mention incredibly useful, especially in bicycle planning and even in a city like Copenhagen.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’ll know all too well our fondness for Desire Lines related to bicycle planning and research. What started with The Choreography of an Urban Intersection has morphed into numerous Desire Lines Analyses of other streets and intersections in Copenhagen and, most recently, Amsterdam. Together with the University of Amsterdam we are analysing behaviour and Desire Lines at ten intersections.

With The Choreography of an Urban Intersection back in 2012, Copenhagenize Design Co. decided to take things to the next level regarding bicycle user behaviour. A study of that size and scope had never been undertaken before. So much commentary about bicycle user behaviour has been based on perception for far too long. “Those damned cyclists” repeated ad nauseum in dozens of languages has made us forget that we don’t actually know very much about their behaviour. In most cities, the reason for what is percieved as “bad behaviour” is simply the fact that bicycle users haven’t been given adequate infrastructure or, even worse, none at all.

The explempary behaviour of Copenhagen bicycle users is due to the fact that the bicycle infrastructure network is, largely, so well-designed. Best Practice has been achieved and, for the most part, it is implemented.

Nevertheless, if you ask certain uniformed civil servants who work for the Copenhagen Police, it is their personal perception that hits the headlines. With The Choreography of an Urban Intersection we decided to get some numbers to show that the perceptions are coloured with emotion and lack data and fact. As the graph at the top indicates, out of 16,631 bicycle users in the intersection Godthåbsvej/Nordre Fasanvej only 1% broke a serious traffic law. Running a red light or riding on the sidewalk. We called them Recklists. The Momentumists were a group that technically broke a Danish traffic law. We put these infractions in a different category. Basically, if it is legal in another city or country with respectable cycling levels, we are okay with it. The rest, the Conformists, did everything by the book.

The results are mirrored by the results in our other studies of other intersections. The vast majority are just playing by the rules.

You can see which rules are being bent in the above graph. What is incredibly important to consider is HOW the rules are being bent. What is the actual behaviour of the individual Momentumists when you study each one with detailed obversation? In short, it is exemplary. It is quite beautiful. One of the primary findings was that when an individual entered a zone where a law was being bent, they were aware of it. The pattern was the same: they would change their physical form.

Generally, the individual would make themselves appear larger. Rising up from their normal cycling position in order to make themselves more visible to others in the urban theatre. Sometimes this was enough for them but many would also look around with a sweet, apologetic look - vaguely, not at anyone in particular - as though to say “sorry… I know, I know… bear with me”. And when they hit the cycle track again, they would assume their usual cycling position. Some would do the classic bicycle chameleon move, swinging their leg off and using the bicycle as a scooter. Again, always aware of their surroundings and the other users of the urban theatre. This subtle awareness of their surroundings was impressive. At no point in the 12 hours were there “cyclist-pedestrian conflicts” as they’re called in Emerging Bicycle Cities. In that regard, it was like watching paint dry. The flow was constant, smooth and elegant. It was choreography. Even the Recklists were heartwarmingly civilised in their behaviour, showing consideration for others. Only three bicycle users out of the 16,631 we tracked roared through a red light. They were all bike messengers. Do what you want with that.

Momentum is paramount when considering how to plan for bicycles. A smooth flow that eliminates the need to stop and get out of the saddle is the key. Simple measures like the railings and footrests in Copenhagen are a fine example. The Green Wave for cyclists on the main arteries leading to the city are another.

Understanding the basic anthropological transport needs of bicycle users - not to mention pedestrians - is the way to designing liveable streets. Bicycles are not cars and this has been the greatest mistake over the past 50 years in city planning… placing bicycles in the same category as motorised vehicles, both regarding traffic laws and the perception of bicycles as vehicles. We are still struggling to rid ourselves of this flawed categorisation all over the world.

Stopping and starting in a car involves pushing down on a couple of pedals. Effortless. Stopping and starting on a bicycle requires a bit more effort. Once momentum has been achieved, a bicycle user will try to maintain it. The countdown signals in the middle of this article are an example of someone out there understanding the needs of bicycle users.

Children understand the simple necessities of traffic planning. Unfortunately, the geekfest that is traffic engineering has all too often forgotten rationality. Campaigns that try to “improve” behaviour are a waste of money. Simply because the people who think them up haven’t bothered to understand the differences between cyclists and motorists or pedestrians.

Change the paradigm.

Read more about the Choregraphy of an Urban Intersections, including all the findings, here. Or you can download the document as a pdf.

As I write this I’m in a vacuum-packed tube hurtling through the air high above the Canadian tundra, heading to Edmonton, Alberta to speak at the Winter Cities Shakeup conference. At this point I’m pleased to be vacuum-packed. That a few generations of designers and engineers have perfected the technology to allow me to avoid the -70 C temperature outside this Air Canada Airbus and to sip a coffee while writing this. I remain amazed that this is possible. Like Louis CK says, “You’re sitting in a chair in the sky! You’re like a Greek myth right now.”

It's a unique and original angle for a conference, this Winter Cities Shakeup. Design and urbanism focused on life in winter cities. Loads of events during the three days of the conference. In a couple of weeks I'll be speaking at the Winter Cycling Conference in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Another great, albeit more specific, angle for a conference.

I started thinking about the Winter Cities Shakeup last year, when they first invited me to speak. What I have been thinking is why conferences like these are even necessary. Where have we ended up in the development of our cities and societies that we find it necessary to discuss and inform about life in cities with extreme (ish) weather conditions. Battling a recent – in the history of cities - development regarding peoples' perception of weather conditions. The chain of thoughts leading to Edmonton and Leeuwarden started in Bangkok last year, where my team and I were working on a project for a client. The project dictated that we were driven all over the city. Not only on work-related matters but also sightseeing thanks to the fantastic, endless hospitality of our hosts. We also spent a great deal of time outside and taking public transport. I soon noticed a pattern in our hosts' behaviour. The minivan was airconditioned, as are the trains and every damn building we ventured into. Every time we entered an airconditioned space, our hosts would comment on how great it was to be out of the heat. Fanning themselves and exhaling through pursed lips in relief. Even a 20 metre dash from minivan to building entrance. It was hot in Bangkok, sure. 30-35 C and muggy. This, however, is not unusual. It's basically been the same weather for the past few... millenia. At the very least. It is in these weather conditions that the ancestors of our friends in the country were born into and lived their lives in. Working, raising families. In the course of a few decades, as airconditioning units became widespread, the heat had become a reluctant antagonist, simply because it was there. People have been conditioned to fear the heat. An inverted meteological condition affects cities northern cities like Edmonton and Calgary and many others. There, it is the cold – performing its standard seasonal routine – that has become the bogeyman. I grew up in Calgary, so I know well the icy rage of a Prairie winter. From fifth to ninth grade I commuted by myself to the other side of the city to go to a private school. 1.5 hours on a combination of buses and trains connected with walking. Many a winters day did I amuse myself by spitting on the glass of busstops when the temperature was -20 C or colder, watching my saliva freeze solid before it had a chance to ooze down the pane. These are places where radio stations announce – almost with a sense of pride – how long it will take your exposed skin to freeze at certain temperatures. I never have to wear a ski hat anymore, so often did my ears get frostbitten. These are places where cars have an electrical cord dangling from the hood because people have to plug in their car at night so the motor block doesn't freeze. At the risk of making myself feel old, I remember how it was growing up in the 70s and 80s in those winters. I remember playing hockey on outdoor rinks at -25 C. Simply because there was nothing else to do and I was an average young man with energy to burn. I walked to high school in highly unsuitable footwear – boat shoes were the thing at the time and socks in boat shoes were a no go. I hated hats and on mornings when I washed my hair and didn't have time to dry it, my hair froze to ice on the 20 minute walk to school. Which I always thought was kind of cool. Was I a hard young man? No. I was just an average young man in a winter city. I do remember, at about the age of nine or so, discovering that the thermostat in the house went up to 30 C. It baffled me that my dad had it set at 22 C. Why 22 when 30 was possible?! I kept turning it up to 30 until he approached me and gruffly explained the concept of heating bills. I was promptly sent back to the “put a sweater on” culture into which my mother had introduced all of us kids. Maybe my doppelganger in some Thai city at that time was being told “fan yourself if you're too hot”. That 'suck it up, buttercup' school of parenting is something I am pleased I experienced and something that my kids have certainly been introduced to. Something has changed. In Bangkok. In Calgary. In Edmonton. I laugh when fellow Copenhageners feel they have to buy a fan during heatwaves in the summer where temperatures skyrocket to … oh... about 30 C. But something has changed in Copenhagen, too. All over the world. I decided to give it a name. Climaphobia. Fear of the weather. Not extreme weather like destructive hurricanes, but just the normal weather. We have developed into climaphobes. We fear the weather as soon as it ventures out of our comfort zone at either end of the temperature scale. In Denmark, the comfort zone is narrow. After twenty years of living in Copenhagen I have noticed that the perfect temperature for the Danes is 25 C. At 24 they bitch about the lousy summer. At 26 they gasp theatrically for breath. When the temperature stays above 20 C at night, the Danish Meteological Institute declares it a “Tropical Night”. It is rarely accompanied by a happy tone, more of a dire warning. My Dad is 88 this year. He grew up on a farm in Northern Jutland. He can tell you stories about the legendary winters that were the norm back then. 1940/41? THAT was a winter. He has lived in Calgary since 1953, so the winter temperatures are just a bit chillier than during his childhood. He smiles and almost chuckles when telling me of this or that coldsnap in Calgary. He is almost disappointed when winter days rise above zero – as I write this it is 15 C in Calgary on January 26th. The shrug his generation reserved for adverse weather rubbed off on my generation but now Climaphobia has struck. Coupled with our sensationalist media culture, a cold winter becomes a Polar Vortex. El Nino and his bride La Nina have produced a cull of unruly children happily named in order to imprint them on an entertainment-hungry society. Nasty hurricanes deserve a name, but generally weather has been celebritized. Previously undramatic weather conditions are elevated to the status of reality show stars. These celebrities are always cast as the bad guy. (Just look at the hysterical reaction to Juno - the storm that "threatened" New York and the East Coast yesterday) As a film, Climaphobia would be lame. If it was found on Sony's servers by hackers, they would have deleted it instead of distributing it as a torrent. The protagonist would be a regular person living a regular life, perhaps plagued by less than optimal blood circulation so their feet and fingers were often cold. The gallery of antagonists would hardly strike fear into our hearts. Who is the battle against? Henry Heatwave, Roger the Raindrop, Coldsnap Charlie. The hero would arm themselves with battery-operated fans, hair dryers, super umbrellas – depending on which sequel we're watching. Climaphobia is a thing because we have spent obscene amounts of energy and money desperately trying to engineer the weather out of our lives. Attempting to create a world like this tube I'm sitting in at 10,000 metres above the Prairies. Calgary is infamous for their Skywalk system. The Plus 15, as it was called when I was young and they started developing it. The skyscrapers in the downtown core are connected by vacuum-packed walkways above the street, allowing you to walk in shirt sleeves from A to B on a complicated and not very direct route. Below, cars roll unencumbered by bothersome pedestrians. Edmonton has a network like this, as well.

Let's face it. The Skywalk concept is a direct product of a car centric society. Keeping people out of the weather was an added bonus to keeping the streets clear for cars. It's a dystopian world. Sit in your warm house, with your car plugged in or standing in a heated garage. There are even remote control devices that start your car from your dining table. Letting it run and get warmed up before you make the 5 metre dash to it. Then you drive in a vaccum-packed bubble to the downtown core, entering a car park, dashing 5 metres to the elevator and into the building, where you spend the rest of your day until to retrace your (very few physical) steps. If Le Corbusier were alive, he wouldn't watch porn. He would google images of the Skywalk to get his kicks. To get YOUR kicks, you have see the satirical film about it, called WayDownTown. A great companion film to Radiant City - another must see mockumentary about sprawl. Both films are by Gary Burns.

The downtown cores in Edmonton and Calgary are, like so many other cities, doughnuts outside of working hours. Devoid of life after the workers head home. These cities effectively amputated their streetlife and replaced it with artificial limbs in the air. Calgary tried to funk it up by making a stretch of 8th Ave car-free back in 1970 and renaming it Stephen Ave. It has never really worked. Parts of it have been handed back to cars and the street is a poor cousin to so many other pedestrianized streets around the world.

The Skywalk system and other concepts like it are simply attempts to put streetlife – and people – on a shelf, out of the way. Like the ridiculous Skycycle idea by English architect Norman Foster. Let's agree from now on that anything with the word Sky in it is probably not conducive to city life.

A conference like Winter Cities Shake-up is the unsuspecting offspring of society's climaphobia. It's goal to get people to enjoy outdoor life – even in the winter. Something homo sapiens have been doing for 200 millenia. I'm looking forward to speaking there, no doubt about it. It's a great idea. I have just tried to identify the societal development leading to it. Is it enough to merely try and communicate the fact that “Hey! Winter's okay!” and work to inspire citizens to “rediscover outdoor winter pleasures”? Especially when their perception has been warped by a generation of vacuum-packing? No. It's not enough. It's design and urbanism that must battle the bad guys. Lurking in the wings of our B-film is the kingpin. Eddie Engineering. Like most nemesises, it's not really his fault. He had a bad childhood, growing up in a neighbourhood built on last-century engineering traditions. The unloved bastard child of Le Corbusier and Robert Moses. In an age where it was thought that engineering alone would save the world. In a region that bought into it. (Just look at that landscape below me now. Prairie terrain carved up by roads as far as the eye can see.) We are left with one of the greatest challenges facing the modernisation of our cities. Changing the perception of the citizens. Perception of life outside the bubble. Perception of how people can transport themselves around cities. Telling is less effective than showing. In the information age where we are inundated with things to learn – more things than we can ever hope to understand – telling through communication is losing its effectiveness.

Showing creates a different conversation. Copenhagen's tradition for pilot projects allows for showing. Once something is on the ground and working, people will discuss it on a much more fruitful level. Look at bike share – and the bike share Whine-o-meter. Ask a population if a city should have bike share and the population will say no. Put it in and get it working and they will understand. If they are still opposed, at least their opposition is well thought out (generally).

67% of motorists in Copenhagen want more bicycle infrastructure. Why? Because we've shown them. If a motorist is sitting at a red light with five cars in front of them and 100 cyclists at the red light on the cycle track next to them, they can see it. “If those five schmucks were on bikes, I'd be the first car at the red light...” They get it.

Building bicycle infrastructure for year round use will show people. “Ah... I get it...” Narrowing car lanes to create space for cycle tracks or public transport... “Ah... I get it...” And so on.

Designing facilities that are proven to work and slapping them into place. It's really the only way forward. Be it pilot projects or permanent solutions. If communication is to be used, it shouldn't be in the form of campaigns to “ride a bike!” or “save the planet!” Environmentalism is the greatest marketing flop in the history of homo sapiens and most bicycle advocacy – as well as a lot of advocacy for liveable cities - is based on the same haughty tone and communication techniques.

The same show starts every autumn on the social media. Strange conversations begin about “how to ride during the winter”. Overcomplicated articles appear, like this one, written by avid cyclists who mean well but who do little to inspire the 99%. Every autumn I link to photos of people cycling in the winter in Copenhagen. This year I just made a new blog, based on a hashtag I thought up last year. Copenhagen Viking Biking. Daily flashcard inspiration.

“People won't do THAT...” Uh. Yes they will. They're doing it right now. Humans will always use the quickest way from A to B. Understanding this urban anthropology is important. Fundemental. Effective.

Design for a life-sized city first, communicate effectively second. Show and tell. Battle Climaphobia and vacuum-packed cities.