Designing Cities for People on Bikes: Personal Experiences from Denmark and the Netherlands – 2022

Apr 22, 2023

2022 University of Oregon Sustainable Transportation Study Abroad Program

Last summer, we accompanied 17 undergraduate and graduate students, 6 professionals, and three local guides on a 4 week study abroad course to Denmark and the Netherlands. After two years of limited travel and social interaction the University of Oregon Sustainable Transportation Study Abroad course took to the streets of Denmark and The Netherlands. The Scan Design Foundation graciously supported this experience for students and professionals.

During the course, we stayed in four larger cities (Copenhagen, Odense, Utrecht, and Amsterdam), met with local professionals across sectors, and visited numerous other places during long day trips. The city is our classroom – we rode bikes like normal people to go to meetings, to recreate, to socialize, and to explore the cities. As we’re experiencing cities on bicycles, we also tried to notice how the systems worked, how people behave, what design features make the system work, and how policy and culture impact transportation choices available to residents and tourists. We experienced what it is like to be able to go from anywhere to anywhere on a bike with freedom, comfort, safety, and convenience.

For some it was their first trip abroad, for others it was a return to a favorite city, but either way the experience of cities designed for people was the same: cycling next to friends, staying out late without a worry about personal safety, taking a dip in the cold waters of Copenhagen’s harbor or using robust public transit all led to better mental and physical health. Our course is designed to encourage independent exploration so that students and professionals get the chance to navigate and experience what it feels like to live in a city with a transportation system designed for people – not automobiles.

During the class, students reflect on what they’re seeing and experiencing through structured and unstructured blog posts. To synthesize what they learned, we asked students to produce a final project based on a topic of their choosing with the task of bringing lessons home to the United States. In their projects, they share what inspired them, the technical details behind it, and communicate this through a series of vignettes for different audiences. After the class, we worked with two students – Bridgette Bottinelli and Brendan Irsfeld – as Scan Design Fellows who edited, integrated, and designed a book that is a compilation of student work on a variety of topics. The topics include:

• Framing and Values
• Communication
• Creating Space
• Nature and Recreation
• Youth Cycling
• Infrastructure
• Case Study |Editorial|Workshop

One of the explicit goals for this course is to translate lessons learned abroad into the U.S. context. Each individual student will undoubtedly carry their own insights throughout their professional careers, but students wanted to produce something that could be shared more broadly so that the insights and inspirations they experienced abroad could inform policy and practice back home. We hope you enjoy this compendium, find some inspiration, and remember the message we strived to impart on students: it's always about more than just bikes.