Yesterday morning, we met with Gehl Design and they gave us insight into how to design the space between buildings for people. They spoke about Copenhagen’s history with the fight over parking, and how just a few years ago the plan was to reduce the number of parking spaces by 3% a year, however, push back has shot this goal down in recent years. We then went for a walking tour of the plazas in the city that were once parking lots. It was impressive to see how well urban spaces have been reclaimed for people.
In the evening, we had a big group dinner at Puk, The third oldest restaurant in Copenhagen, at over 500 years old. Our waiter was very fun and charismatic, he told us lots of stories throughout dinner and he taught us to speak Danish by putting 3 or 4 potatoes in our mouth and then talking. It was nice to spend a laid back evening chatting with everyone.
There are a handful of professionals with us on our trip, Tiffany Edwards, who works for the Eugene Chamber of Commerce, Dave Reesor, who is the director of Transportation Services at UO, Sarah Mazze, who works with Safe Routes to School, and Rob Inerfeld, who is the Transportation Planning Manager for Eugene. This morning, we all gathered in a park by a pond and had them all speak about who they are, what some of their thoughts are on what they are seeing here, and how this influences what they plan to do when they get back to Eugene. I think it’s a really great opportunity for people who are in the workforce now to be able to see this with us because this is a good opportunity for tangible change in Eugene in a timely fashion. The students on this trip will bring this perspective to cities when we become more involved in the workforce, however, change needs to happen before then, too. Bike infrastructure might not seem like a big thing to a lot of people, but it is so incredibly vital to keeping cities livable. Biking and transit are the most efficient and sustainable modes of transportation, and with urgent pressure of climate change, we can’t afford to wait for a new generation of planners and voters. Change needs to start now. Everyone is always learning, and just as we are learning from and with the professionals on our trip, they too are learning from and with us.
This evening, a few of us rented a boat and explored the city’s harbors and canals at dusk. We had a great time and only had to deal with drunk Danish boys trying to board our boat once. Our engine started dying on the way back so we were moving very slowly which turned out to be quite torturous considering how badly we all needed to pee. All things considered, it was a very lovely evening with very lovely people.
Comments