We all know that Copenhagen is the bicycle capital of the world. They have such a fantastic infrastructure setup for the hoards of cyclists that they are now able to begin focusing on the friendly little details of urban bicycle life. What’s the latest and greatest on the streets? A little something to lean on.
The new double railing system has tapped into a little subconscious human behavioral detail like the Paul Bennett from IDEO discussed in a TED lecture about designing for people. Basically, observe what people do and design for that. The natural behavior when it comes to bicyclists can be observed anywhere there is a pole, a person or just anything at all to lean on at a traffic light.
And not only lean, but put up a foot so they don’t have to get off the seat and maybe can even have something to push off on.
This bicycle friendly detail popped up in Copenhagen on a little island midway between crossing a street. For the people that get stuck on the island from a red light can grab onto the bar and put a foot up while they wait for the green. It’s also very nice and it reads, “Hi, cyclist! Rest your foot here… and thank you for cycling in the city.”
This friendly little detail is part of Copenhagen’s “Hi, Cyclist!” behavorial campaign developed by Mikael Colville-Andersen, also author of the blog Copenhagenize. He describes it as, “a behavioral campaign and a communications template with which the Bicycle Office can communicate with the cycling citizens. The average Copenhagener who rides to work or school each day doesn’t really pay much attention to bicycle infrastructure or even bicycles. They just ride.”
Mikael continues on to say, “We all have a sense of pride about the city in which we live. Here in Copenhagen we love to hear that we’ve been voted the world’s most livable city and things like that. I figured that our cycling citizens should be made aware of all the positive aspects of our bike culture, in order to stimulate that inherent civic pride in relation to our cycling life.”
images via zakka/mikael, copenhagenize