Copenhagenize Victoria? Lessons from a Guru

"It’s important for democracy if people from different groups can meet each other in their communities rather than sitting at home and watching television." -- Jan Gehl, 2009

image smh.com.au

Last year, I had the privilege of hearing urban guru Jan Gehl of Gehl Architects speak at Toronto's Design Exchange.

As in my case, Gehl's perceptions on urban life are heavily influenced by psychology and his better half: A suburban architect in his early days, Gehl married a psychologist, which lead to "many discussions about why the human side of architecture was not more carefully looked after by the architects, landscape architects, and planners." (wikipedia.org)
 
Gehl discussed his one stone - five birds strategy. That is, by restricting vehicular traffic (one stone), a city can become livelier, safer, more attractive, more sustainable, and healthier (five birds), simultaneously.

A more fitting analogy, as you're not eliminating those birds, might be a Liam-inspired fill five birds with one scone. Nevertheless.

Public space in Melbourne. Gehl Architects image.

In addition to built environment changes, Gehl Architects sets itself apart with its enthusiasm for post-implementation data, in order to not only document positive change in pedestrian and cyclist activity but also provide ammunition to city officials.

In his talk, Gehl used the recent example of his Gehl Architets' work with Melbourne, Australia, to discuss the methods of Copenhagenizing a city -- a term Gehl is known for using.

In 1994, Gehl Architects -- after an needs assessment -- set up Melbourne with a huge series of recommendations to improve its suffering core. Here is a taster of the indicator/data from their excellent and highly accessible report on the change between 1994 and 2004.

Click to enlarge:

from: http://www.gehlarchitects.com/?#/165298/

A very cool, creative, and logical indicator of success, not shown above, is the increases in outdoor cafes/restaurants and, in particular, cafe chairs in the city: up 275% and 177% respectively!

Now, it's important to note that Copenhagen was also Copenhagenized, as opposed to just being that way, so the term and process has credibility.

By 1996, Copenhagen had six times the amount of car-free space than it had when pedestrian initiatives began in 1962.

In his 1996 book, Public Spaces -- Public Life, Gehl presents this process that he helped to pioneer after "systematically studying and recording people in the city. After twenty years of research, we've been able to prove that these steps have created four times more public life."

Here are the 10 (broad) steps used to Copenhagenize Copenhagen and subsequent cities. In my opinion, Victoria would do well to follow suit.

I took and edited this next section from an article at metropolismag.com.

COPENHAGEN'S 10-STEP PROGRAM

1. Convert streets into pedestrian thoroughfares.
The city turned its traditional main street, Strøget, into a pedestrian thoroughfare in 1962. In succeeding decades they gradually added more pedestrian-only streets, linking them to pedestrian-priority streets, where walkers and cyclists have right-of-way but cars are allowed at low speeds.

Hmm.. Wharf St. and/or its parking lots, anyone?

2. Reduce traffic and parking gradually.
To keep traffic volume stable, the city reduced the number of cars in the city center by eliminating parking spaces at a rate of 2-3 percent per year. Between 1986 and 1996 the city eliminated about 600 spaces.

Stroget, Copenhagen's first ped-only street (1962). Gov't St., anyone?

3. Turn parking lots into public squares.
The act of creating pedestrian streets freed up parking lots, enabling the city to transform them into public squares. (New York, recently, and soon Shelbourne?)

4. Keep scale dense and low.
Low-slung, densely spaced buildings allow breezes to pass over them, making the city center milder and less windy than the rest of Copenhagen. (I agree. Let's keep those height restrictions.)

5. Honor the human scale.
The city's modest scale and street grid make walking a pleasant experience; its historic buildings, with their stoops, awnings, and doorways, provide people with impromptu places to stand and sit.

http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/16/woonerf-and-python/

6. Populate the core.
More than 6,800 residents now live in the city center. They've eliminated their dependence on cars, and at night their lighted windows give visiting pedestrians a feeling of safety.

7. Encourage student living.
Students who commute to school on bicycles don't add to traffic congestion; on the contrary, their active presence, day and night, animates the city.

8. Adapt the cityscape to changing seasons.
Outdoor cafés, public squares, and street performers attract thousands in the summer; skating rinks, heated benches, and gaslit heaters on street corners make winters in the city center enjoyable.

This is in France, and you shouldn't smoke. But, you get the idea (e.g., Moka House). (Newsweek.com)

9. Promote cycling as a major mode of transportation.
The city established new bike lanes and extended existing ones. They placed bike crossings--using space freed up by the elimination of parking--near intersections. Currently 34 percent of Copenhageners who work in the city bicycle to their jobs.

 latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck

10. Make bicycles available.
People can borrow city bikes for about $2.50; when finished, they simply leave them at any one of the 110 bike stands located around the city center and their money is refunded.
 

The City Bike program has been around since the 90s.

These are all ideas that will be consistently explored on makevictoriabetter.com. And, in light of our attention spans, this post will remain as a great intro rather than a discussion of them.

 Copenhagenize Victoria!