Mya on a Bike - An Exploration of Sustainable Bike Transit

  Saturday was my first free day on the trip and it was a new experience to decide where and what my adventures on my bike would be. I started the day with some newfound friends at a thrift store down the street from the hostel. We decided to walk since many of us were sore and tired from our first day and a half on the bike. The difference was striking. The pedestrian infrastructure in Copenhagen is significantly less impressive than their bicycle infrastructure and more in line with what I would expect from most urban areas. It was longer, hotter, louder, and overall less enjoyable. I was already acclimated to the ease of biking, and the distance and speed we were able to go on the bikes. In Eugene, my main mode of transit is walking. I use my bike for commuting to and from work but other than that I walk if my destination takes me off of the 13th or Alder bike path. In Portland, I usually drive, and stress about parking, other drivers, and my strong dislike for car travel (I h...

The ease with which I adjusted to biking in Copenhagen surprised me. Our initial assignment of following someone around felt intimidating in a place where I had never seen so many people biking at once. The person I chose to follow, who was wearing a long floral green dress that seems incredibly popular here, took me on a straight line up Øster Voldgade. My first impression of this route was the ease of travel, despite it being a major car route as well. The lights seem times so that I rarely had to stop as I biked by impressive museums, old churches, and brightly colored housing. The ease with which I traveled a significant amount of distance emphasized how different the bicycle infrastructure here is from the US. My other initial observations included the diversity in ages and professions I saw biking. In my first couple of days, I’ve seen young children, students, the elderly, and everything in between biking all over the city. I’ve also seen people biking in casual summer clothing,...

My pre-Assignment was the analysis and reflection of videos by a Canadian living in the Netherlands. He explores Dutch bicycle infrastructure through the eyes of someone new to the country. I think his perspective is very similar to mine and others on the trip because Canada has similar levels of infrastructure to the US. Key infrastructure he focused on, and that spoke to me, were parking, Ontvlechten, and overall seamless design. Parking infrastructure is rather complicated, I discovered. The main goal of parking infrastructure is to safely store the bike and be convenient. Some Dutch cities have run into issues with convenience due to the sheer number of riders. This has led to the construction of large biking garages, which can be inconvenient. I hope during this trip we can explore various parking methods. Ontvlechten is the Dutch word for unraveling and describes the process of decoupling bicycle routes and car routes. This is an important aspect of Dutch design and I am excit...

This course has been on my radar since I was a freshman at the University of Oregon in 2019. It was one of the initial reasons I chose to become a PPPM major and I was incredibly excited to be able to take it. However, during the summer of my freshmen year and sophomore year, it was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Summer of my junior year I studied at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology to fulfill biology requirements for my Environmental Science degree. This context led me to take this course in the Summer of 2023, leaving for  Copenhagen at 6am the day after I walked into Commencement. I’m excited to take this course as a senior who has fulfilled all the other requirements of my PPPM degree. I think it will build upon my knowledge of sustainable transit systems and open my eyes to what could be.  Bicycles parked near a metro station, Copenhagen. The primary things I hope to gain from this class are a more in-depth understanding of bicycle infrastructure, wh...