The Highway Projects That Almost Destroyed Copenhagen (and a reminder that megaprojects can die)

Great video as always Michael. Anyone here in Copenhagen engaged in the battle against Lynetteholm needs to watch this for some healthy perspective and a bit of hope.

I've never been to Copenhagen. I've never been interested in city planning/urban development. Yet here I am frantically clicking on your new upload. I love how tangible you present these topics and how it prompts me to think of the area I live in – I started to look at Budapest in a different manner due to your videos.

Great video, in Antwerp, Belgium we are unfortunately stuck with a ringway that runs straight through the city. Popular protest against an extra tunnel and even more infrastructure was bought of with the fake promise of putting a roof over the existing ringway. Because once the tunnel is complete, the government will be out of money and there will be no roof.

Thanks for this video. Here in Houston (Texas) there is a massive $9 Billion highway expansion project on the drawing boards. I'm getting some great arguments and ideas to oppose it from your videos. BTW I have been to Copenhagen one time and enjoyed it.

Great video, as per usual! As an American living in Copenhagen for the past 6 years, I've really come to appreciate the cycling infrastructure and public transport here. While it's not perfect, it puts pretty much every major city in the US to shame. I hope we can continue, as a society, to move away from the idealization of the car, or at the very least the personal car, and stop scarring our cities with huge roadways.

They did this in my city in the 70s the suburb never recovered from the destruction, RIP High st , St Kilda.

I don’t know what you did to piss YouTube off, but they haven’t recommended any of your videos in over a year. I had to go look for your channel, which I am subscribed to, and couldn’t remember the name. “Biking Copenhagen” got me there.

As a HUGE danish infrastrukture nerd, I love this video!

loved it, Michael! Brilliant video and lots of great useful historical information. It must've taken quite a bit of research

3:02 one little correction the Weimar Republic started the Autobahn's, Hitler and the Nazi's actually wanted to stop building them as it was big government spending which was antithetical to their interest (ironic when they wanted a huge armed forces but hay), however they were so popular they kept on building them just at a slower rate, but used them as a propaganda tool having a lot of photos taken with them, which is why they are associated with them to this day.

Really interesting video , great historical context. one of your best. “Everything comes in circles. [...] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.” We visited Copenhagen with the kids last month and had a lovely walk by the lakes and stayed in Vesterbro - thank Oden😂 the mega project died. Keep up the struggle against these bad ideas

Damn, every single megaproject is a crime against citizens in every city. They were intending to create so many freeways, but where the hell are those people were supposed to go anyways if good half of Copenhagen would be razed, considering that remaining buildings next to these freeways die in no time, because nobody wants to live there and businesses are gone, coz nobody walks in? Look up Prague Magistrala. A 4-lane each way monstrosity cutting through 2 most vibrant historical districts of Prague peaking with all these lanes chocked with traffic right in front the main national museum, which is cut away from people on both sides. They literally prevented people from entering the national museum, because there are 4 lanes of cars flying 70 right at the entrance. This thing still lives and poisons life here to this day and I have no idea how anyone in sound mind could think that this is a good idea. Such atrocities alongside brutalist architecture are absolute maniac statements of hatred addressed to cities and people living in them.

Where I live major freeways were destroyed in an earthquake. After that they weren’t rebuilt. Entire parts of town have come out from the shadows and have become desirable place to live. The process has been slow and is still underway. It’s possible to reverse some of the negative impact of freeways if a community doesn’t give up

Glad that a lot of these projects don't get built...Keep up the brilliant videos and keep fighting!

In Silkeborg a few years ago they finished the motorway, I have come to hate it. On mornings when traffic is more busy than normal and the air is cold the sound travels much further and it's impossibly to not hear it let alone enjoy being outdoors. Yes sound travels further in cold air which also means traffic noise is also surprisingly loud and annoying at night. It took many years for it to be built because they didn't want to destroy our nature, well now they sure did. The other day I was out by a beautiful little lake in the forest that is close to the motorway, noise there too, can't escape the stupid thing. They destroyed my city, and they are still doing it, these damn politicians deserve nothing but torture for tormenting others with their shit. As the guy from Not Just Bikes says, cities aren't loud cars are loud.

Woww great video!! Amazing to see how different the city would have looked!

Great film :) Many Dutch city's took down motor ways to rebuild the original canals. Keep up the fight

First video I have seen from this channel and I’m blown away. I really liked your presenting style and this just shows how we always need to think carefully before we do something stupid we will regret.

Amazing video, and fascinating for anybody knowing Copenhagen. They were litteraly planning to obliterate the best neighborhoods of the city ! Copenhagen would be a hellhole, a car and concrete inferno today.

Your best video yet. Great job mikael (and team?)