Good design moves people. Visiting Copenhagen this weekend I discovered it moves young people in particular, with stylish kiddie vehicles.
The city has a cycling culture, but alongside the trendy boys and women wearing 4-inch heels pedalling around town, you also see scores of parents with their children sitting in large boxes in the front of their bikes, some bundled up against the fresh breeze, some zipped under foul-weather covers like mini-tents.
This is not some freshly knitted eco-trend. The Danish Christiania bike has been around for 25 years and is considered a design classic (we saw it featured at The Danish Design Centre). It’s all made that much better with the wide designated cycle lanes that are actually separated from regular traffic. Sure beats those skinny blue cycle strips in London.
But the real surprise are the prams. In the UK, the old-fashioned Silver Cross style of pram is hopelessly impractical if you plan to take public transport and actually, I don’t know, enter a shop.
Here, everyone is wheeling this style of pram. I saw a man getting onto a city bus with one, his toddler perched on a little seat affixed across the top. I saw people wheeling their babies through the wide main shopping street. And what happens when you want to duck into a cute little cafe like Granola (order the soft-boiled egg platter, it’s dreamy)? You leave your big baby carriage parked outside the door. On the sidewalk.
I’m not going to be one of those people who insists everything is better somewhere else. But when it comes to wheeling your kids around town in comfort, Copenhagen races ahead of us.
A friend told me the same thing! Said even when going up the stairs there were ramps so that you didn’t have to get someone to help you up with the stroller. Its on my list of places to visit. Hope you had a good time! Maria
Thanks for praising my city! And I agree, Copenhagen is a cyclists paradise, with new and wider cycle lanes being created all over town. To cycle is by far the fastest way to get around and you can bring your bike on the s-train free of charge if you need to go outside town centre.
Granola is a great cafe! Love their smoothies. Next time, try their croque monsieur with lots of dijon mustard…
@Maria those little ramps are genius: just a little metal track laid on the stairs so you can wheel your bike up or down easily. We saw one in a shop with two tracks for pushchairs. Simple but brilliant.
@Anja thanks for the tip re: croquet Monsieur. We had two more fantastic meals (more about those in later posts). It’s so liveable here. Makes it hard to leave.
How on earth did he get the pram onto the bus??!
@Iota – The buses look like they have wider access at the back double doors. The father we saw was certainly wheeling it in easily.