Highmoon's Ponderings New

In saying that I seek to “Copenhagenize” Miami, what exactly does that mean? Copenhagen and Miami are very dissimilar cities, so how can one influence the other? And what is this “Bicycle Culture 2.0″ that I speak of? Think of them as keywords that convey in a tight package a lot of information about the change sought for Miami.

In this short series, I’ll be defining the terms Bicycle Culture 2.0, Copenhagenize/Copenhagenizing and Miamize.

Miamize

This is, in essence, the result of the transformation discussed; Miamize is what we end up once new ideas of what our city can be with proper bicycling projects in place, what role an enhanced bike-friendly culture can play, and what future we want for Miami as a bikeable city are put into practice. Miamize is what we end up when we’ve taken the Copenhagenize lessons and applied them to our city, our realities of life, our culture. Copenhagenize

Miamize is the ultimate goal: the creation of an exemplary bikeable city that takes advantage of the fantastic year-round weather, flat terrain and dense urban areas in key tourist locations that we already have, and one that moves into the future with a clear and determined plan to develop the necessary components in safety and infrastructure to continue to increase the number of people on bicycles on the roads and the number of trips made by bike overall.

It can be done. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. The City of Miami proved how much could be achieved in a few short years when determination and a clear goal are the guiding lights. Now we must continue what was begun and expand that wave of progress to the rest of the Greater Miami area.

It’s time to Miamize.

In saying that I seek to “Copenhagenize” Miami, what exactly does that mean? Copenhagen and Miami are very dissimilar cities, so how can one influence the other? And what is this “Bicycle Culture 2.0″ that I speak of? Think of them as keywords that convey in a tight package a lot of information about the change sought for Miami.

In this short series, I’ll be defining the terms Bicycle Culture 2.0, Copenhagenize/Copenhagenizing and Miamize.

Copenhagenize/Copenhagenizing

It may sound presumptuous: “I want to Copenhagenize Miami.” But there is a reason to use the term. Yes, at its core it has to do with the fact that I’m looking to bring the author of Copenhagenize.com and founder of Copenhagenize Consulting to lecture in Miami. Mikael has a very good brand there and it serves to communicate with any who knows about his blog. But there is more, as even to Mikael, the term Copenhagenize has a meaning.

Aside from Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Denmark, is arguably Europe’s most bike-friendly big city; not only does a large percentage of its population use bicycles on a daily basis, it features an amazing network of bicycling infrastructure. It’s a dream for any urban bicyclist. But this wasn’t always the case.

In the 60s, Copenhagen was about as car-clogged a city as any other. It took a number of visionary politicians with gumption to go against the grain to lay the groundwork that would turn Denmark’s capital into a place where today about 55% of the population choose the bicycle for all trips, where 37% of trips by commuters to work and school are by bikes. Yes, Copenhagen had a bicycling legacy from before the post-WWII car boom to recall, but so does the USA (if on a smaller scale).

Modern bike-friendly Copenhagen didn’t happen, it was made, and that’s precisely what Mikael drives at with Copenhagenize.com and Copenhagenize Consulting: every city can be Copenhagenized–that is, taken through a process wherein it is turned into a bike-friendly place via political enactments that promote safe bicycling and build bike infrastructure that anyone can use.

As stated in Copenhagenize Consulting’s Vision:

Copenhagenizing is a way of describing how urban centres can tackle air and noise pollution, rising health care costs due to lifestyle illnesses and obesity as well as creating more liveable cities. Our goal is inspiring and advising others about how to reestablish the bicycle as a transport form by removing the label of cycling as only a sport or a child’s pastime. We do so by using the Copenhagenize Experience as a guide. In the 1960’s cycling was on the decline but we managed to turn that around thanks to visionary urban planning and political decisions.

And thus why the push to Copenhagenize Miami. We have already taken the first steps ourselves: creating the Bike Miami Days & Rides programs, drafting and getting approved the Miami Bicycle Master Plan (Miami Beach has a Bike Master Plan as well), both efforts that turned the City of Miami in only two years from one of Bicycling Magazine’s worst bicycling cities in the US to a stop in their BikeTown USA bike commuting program, an acknowledgment of progress. Now the push is on to move from plans to action.

Ultimately, though, the goal isn’t to become Copenhagen. We aren’t Copenhagen, we are Miami, and in Mikael’s own words, “We start with Copenhagenizing but really the goal is to [...] Miamize as soon as possible.”

In saying that I seek to “Copenhagenize” Miami, what exactly does that mean? Copenhagen and Miami are very dissimilar cities, so how can one influence the other? And what is this “Bicycle Culture 2.0″ that I speak of? Think of them as keywords that convey in a tight package a lot of information about the change sought for Miami.

Over the next three posts, I’ll be defining the terms Bicycle Culture 2.0, Copenhagenize/Copenhagenizing and Miamize.

Bicycle Culture 2.0

It’s a rising trend, people riding their bikes as they do normal, day-to-day things. Pin it on global warming, environmentalism, high gas prices, casual fitness fads, the “current economic climate,” the result is the same: people are riding bikes more. A half-century ago and prior, the bike was a commonplace form of transportation for all ages. That changed after the War, and the new affluence brought the development of housing further away from urban centers and the rise of the Car Culture. Cities like Miami became defined by their roads and suburbs, by how long the commutes were, by how big/fast/expensive the cars were. Bikes got relegated to weekend jaunts by  Lycra-clad road warriors, or to the archetypal holiday gift for boys and girls. At most, they became the domain of hipster subcultures thriving on the desolate edges of urban centers. But times are changing.

Bicycle Culture 2.0 is about recapturing that time when bikes were a de facto form of transport and bringing it to the 21st Century, taking advantage of decades of new techniques in urban planning and bicycling advocacy to create a new cityscape that is safe for bicyclists and promotes the use of bikes by all segments of the populations, from the young to the young at heart. With the establishment of the revolutionary form-based zoning code known as Miami 21, the City of Miami already has a blueprint for the building blocks of Bicycle Culture 2.0. Now we have to work on the rest of Greater Miami.