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Europe's most liveable city? The secret of Odense's post-industrial revolution

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/20...ch-hub-cycling

The huge, wooden scale model of Odense, inside a temporary information centre opposite the town hall, looks initially like a replica of the Danish city. But give them a few minutes and a local would begin to spot some differences, especially to the main traffic route bisecting the urban centre.

- Thomas B Thriges Street was built in the 1960s as a solution to growing car congestion: a fast-moving, four-lane road laid like a curved ribbon across the middle of the city. That ribbon was first trimmed 18 months ago when a central section of the street was closed to vehicles. More is to come in the next few years, as the rest of the road is transformed into a new heart for Odense, reserved for bikes and pedestrians, and lined with shops, cafes and homes.

- It is the centrepiece of a hugely ambitious, and initially controversial, near-£3bn makeover for Denmark’s third-biggest city, which is attempting to revive itself from slightly struggling post-industrial area to a hi-tech hub for education and industry. And at the centre of this transformation is the thing Odense boasts it does as well as anywhere in Europe: liveability. --- “We try to think about people living here all their life, and having a good life here,” says Anker Boye, the city’s veteran mayor, a house painter turned professional politician. “The investors are coming because they know people want to live in Odense.”

- While Copenhagen has long been the place of pilgrimage for foreigners with a yearning to experience Denmark’s famously pro-bike culture, Odense quietly but firmly stresses its national primacy on two-wheeled transport. Following decades of work to build infrastructure and embed a cycling culture, the statistics are astonishing. Odense, a city of just under 200,000 people, has almost 350 miles of bike lanes and 123 cyclist-only bridges. --- Most impressive is the inclusivity of cycling, with 81% of children riding to school and training programmes in place to get even two-year-old kindergarten entrants to trundle to and from home on a balance bike.

- Odense was formerly one of Denmark’s industrial centres, especially for shipping, building huge container vessels for the Maersk group until 2012. Its hoped-for economic future is based heavily around reshaping the centre to reflect the new purpose. An old harbour is being rebuilt with offices and homes, as well as a cultural centre, all linked to the centre by a just-finished, sweep-curved cycle bridge. --- Meanwhile Thomas B Thriges street – named, inevitably, after a famous local industrialist – will in its rebuilt form host not just bikes and pedestrians but also a new tramline, linking to the city’s university and hospital. Cars can approach the city centre via ringroads but will be channelled to park-and-ride systems or new underground parking.

- A key element is thus promotion and encouragement, especially with younger people. Foreign students who come to study at one university in Odense receive a bike with their university room. Machines from the municipal bike-hire scheme need to be unlocked using a mobile phone code, but then cost nothing to use. One intrepid city employee dresses in a head-to-toe cuddly duck outfit and, in the guise of a character named Cycling Anton, rides between kindergartens to spread the two-wheeled message via stickers and hugs.

- The result is clear in Odense’s post-school mini rush hour. While many children do cycle with their parents, a number of others, even of primary age, ride alone or with similar-sized siblings. The official policy is that routes to schools should be sufficiently safe for those aged six or older to cycle alone if the family chooses. --- Klaus Bondam, who heads the Copenhagen-based Cyklistforbundet, or Danish cyclists’ union, admits Odense has the lead over his city on this: “In many places in Copenhagen we do have a cycling environment, but you don’t feel safe sending a kid out to cycle. Odense are doing good.”

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A new car-free bridge in Odense, where 50% of all central trips are made by bike. Photograph: Thomas D Mørkeberg







Cyclists and pedestrians on Vestergade, one of Odense’s main streets. Photograph: Thomas D Mørkeberg