Comments on Copenhagenize.com - Bicycle Culture by Design: Copenhagen City of Bikes

It really is a shame that there are still so many ...

2012-01-11T00:52:08.795+01:00

It really is a shame that there are still so many things going against people commuting by bikes in Copenhagen. I never got that impression the 2 times I've cycled there, and it was such an enjoyable and amazing time biking around the entire city. But that's also because I'm not even from one of the better cycling cities in the US, which don't compare to Cph.

I guess the Danes have reached a point where it's "good enough" that no one is going to do massive protests again. Few probably think about improvements that should be made and most will just react passively any time a detriment is dealt to cyclists (such as by not cycling or cycling less often).

I'm still, and always will be, impressed by the efforts made in Copenhagen. But I must admit that the Dutch are quite a few steps ahead. If only Denmark would follow suit, perhaps the modal share of cyclist would one day approach that of the Netherlands.

"And since when Thomas Jefferson and George W...

2012-01-09T19:36:55.807+01:00

"And since when Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were anti-capitalists"

Never, that's the point. They were, however, cannon firing revolutionaries who thought that bankers and corporations were to be the ruin of the world and fought to oppose them their whole lives.

Corporatism and Fascism are not Capitalism.

By the way, have you actually gone back and read the bit you wrote that I quoted and sought to understand its meaning? You didn't say anything about Marxism.

kfg, since when Michel Foucault, Agamben, and oth...

2012-01-09T17:36:44.836+01:00

kfg,

since when Michel Foucault, Agamben, and others were "Founders of a Nation"?!

And since when Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were anti-capitalists, anarchists and autonomist-marxists?

"it`s not American (but Latin), neither Conse...

2012-01-08T23:06:45.986+01:00

"it`s not American (but Latin), neither Conservative"

And yet it expressed precisely the philosophy of the Roman republic (hence the Latin connection. Brazil is American), George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and . . . Simon Bolivar.

"Left wing" radicals the lot of them.

And how can one get more conservative than espousing the values of one's nation's founders?

kfg Not only it`s not American (but Latin), neith...

2012-01-08T17:52:46.115+01:00

kfg

Not only it`s not American (but Latin), neither Conservative (but very, very!, left wing) way of thinking - it remarks that the Cons or Neo-Cons don`t want a smaller state, but a bigger state on the punitive side.

What I want is even more social protection, more public politics, etc. (even because I am a public server, in a third-world country, and always been socialist) - without increasing the "Watchover & Punishment" of the state.

Of course Welfare State is better than anything before. But it`s not the chery in top of the cake - it`s just the apetizer.

I am anti-capitalist, but it is still too litle - what I want is much more, much subversive. More radically anti-conservative than you ever can get.

Edward Before, during WW2 and for a while after,...

2012-01-08T16:03:50.562+01:00

Edward

Before, during WW2 and for a while after, bikes were the predominant mode of transportation in Copenhagen, like it is today for commuters. Back then, few could afford cars, ans used trams/streetcars or walked. Back then cars needed to fit in between the bicycles, not the other way around.

Today the speed limits are as I mention determined by what motorists perceive to be safe, not what we know to be safe. If speed limits were determined by a risk assesment, the objective with the city and the utility of saving a minute or two in traffic for a minority of the commuters, one might lower speed limits to 30 or 20 km/h like the US military does on military bases -ten miles an hour!.

" . . .asking cyclists to share the road with...

2012-01-08T05:25:05.185+01:00

" . . .asking cyclists to share the road with fast-moving motor vehicles."

So don't do it.

Stop thinking in the box of the automobile, like a motorist, as if all you've known is all that could be. As if the motor car simply is, by some sort of divine act of special creation which it would be a sin to alter, or to impede its "progress."

'Cause it weren't and it ain't.

Nail a manifesto to the bull pen's door, brother.

"A fellow bicyle advocate, recently wrote: “...

2012-01-08T04:26:03.152+01:00

"A fellow bicyle advocate, recently wrote: “The day they put in the first bike path was the day cycling received its mortal wound. It took decades to take effect and it'll probably survive a few more years on life support, but unless cyclists are integrated, the dream is effectively over.”

"I think he may be quite right."

Not sure what you mean by this? "Integrating" cyclists is generally the problem. That is, asking cyclists to share the road with fast-moving motor vehicles. They don't do it. That is the reason why hardly anybody uses a bike for everyday transport in places like the US and Australia. I thought you Danes had understood that. What exactly are you suggesting?

“The day they put in the first bike path was the d...

2012-01-07T21:54:18.645+01:00

“The day they put in the first bike path was the day cycling received its mortal wound.”

"I think he may be quite right, we need to change our paradigm of what city traffic is"

Aha! The light dawns, and at Copenhagenize, of all places.

"In one world: the State, the Government, any government, can't "give" Freeedom. Freedom is a practice against the State (and the Capital). And I don't mean to sound neo-liberal with that; on the contrary! If the privatization thru capital isn't good, statization is a form of capital also. And in the place of Welfare State, what I want is the Commonfare: people taking care of themselves and each-other withou a Big Father to Protect and Punish)"

What a remarkably ultra-conservative, American thing to say.

Lucas, -Thanks, really interesting point of view ;...

2012-01-07T19:44:18.314+01:00

Lucas, -Thanks, really interesting point of view ;-)

Dear Michael, I happen to be in the middle way of...

2012-01-07T19:35:50.011+01:00

Dear Michael,

I happen to be in the middle way of too similar, but never in dialogue, epistemologic positions.

One is the marxist autonomism from Austria and France, of Andre Gorzs and Ivan Ilicch, the oil chock of the 1970, energy equity, anti-car, you all know about.

The other one is the marxist autonomismo from Italy, that focus that State, even welfare state, is a form of violence - and even workers union is a form of state. This is leaded mainly by Antonio Negri and Giorgio Agamben, from the standpoint started by Michel Foucault.

Agamben have a strong maxim: the Democratic State is no more than a way to hide the Exception State - they are not even to faces of the same coin. They are the same face, turned round itself as in the Moebius' Band.

Of course, it's more easy to see and feel in countries of low equity and low democratic tradition, such as South Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece - no coincidence they are the eye of the dragon of the crisis in Europe), or Latin American. And I live in the latest state of Brasil to leave behind militar dictatorship: Bahia (it only happened between 2001 and 2006 - 20 years after the rest of the country, even after poorer states of the same region, such as Sergipe, Pernambuco and Ceará).

Maybe you are discovering it now. And yes, of course segregated infrastruture are crucial - but this doesn't mean they have to be the main solution, or ubiquous. Look at Rio de Janeiro: the turning-point is exactly that they don't prioritise segregated infraestructure, but trafic calming, marketing bike, etc. And the efect is visible: one of the most cycle-friendly cities on earth! - and it wasn't until a decade ago (actualy, it was almost civil war there a decade ago).

In one world: the State, the Government, any government, can't "give" Freeedom. Freedom is a practice against the State (and the Capital). And I don't mean to sound neo-liberal with that; on the contrary! If the privatization thru capital isn't good, statization is a form of capital also. And in the place of Welfare State, what I want is the Commonfare: people taking care of themselves and each-other withou a Big Father to Protect and Punish)

(Alas, Agamben again: the State is a teological mithology, as much as God, the Church, and religion itself. I would complement: so is capital, and so is work as employment - work as we know it for 300 hundred years, since the Bourgeois Order took place).