Copenhagen has a 10,000 square meter traffic garden! Trafiklegepladsen Faelledparken! (hint the word “leg” in Danish means Play – think Lego – the Dutch invented Legos!)
Kids spend time playing and get to goof off on actual scale versions of real-life bike facilities they’ll see in the big world! A raised bike lane, a bike priority roundabout, traffic signals with their signature red, yellow, green, yellow, red sequencing and plenty of pint-sized bikes to borrow for free.
The staff of the traffic garden are pretty hands off – they really want the kids to play play play, so they just lead games. They used to have a strict curriculum, but they found that the kids learned more and retained more just by doing. Their philosophy has evolved into embedding “bikes are fun” right into the kids psyche!
Kids after 5th grade take a comprehensive test on rules of the road, as well as hands on field test – out in the real world. So this playground was their first exposure – just for little little kids. But they let us play there for the morning and it was a blast! We learned about its history – it started in the 1970’s as a go-cart course, but changed to be just for bikes, and tiny kiddos (age 3 to kindergartners) really recently (about 10 years ago). It was renovated by Maersk – that big shipping container company – who paid for the conversion. The hedges simulate buildings. They have created a dozen games – in partnership with the Danish Cycling Federation (hey, why don’t you see if you can download them?) so the kids learn by playing in the space.
The staff reiterated that it is incredibly important to not just teach kids that bikes are a way to get from point A to point B – but that they are fun ways to PLAY. They fought with the old Danish guard and culture that wanted this traffic garden to be a place where RULES were taught. Rule rule rule. They really worked hard to demonstrate that the games were more fun, kids wanted to come and spend lots and lots of time. And they were absorbing the things they needed to learn anyway – but without stress and without squashing the kids desire to play.
“We are feeding the bicycle culture, right here, in this park, everyday,” says Richard. He recommends that we start one in our community – get volunteers to play games with the kiddos, maybe ask insurance companies, auto companies, and other local area businesses to support and fund the cause. The park needs gardeners, staff, and games leaders as well as bike mechanics and loads and loads of tyke bikes. Since they have the bike repair shop, they also convert old bikes into ones that are useful for those people with disabilities – sidecars, hand cycles, ones built for folks with no arms, or no legs.
The traffic garden park is open Monday to Friday 9 to 5 and sees 10,000 kiddos in a year – but they don’t count anymore now that they don’t have to file those silly reports anymore!
This traffic garden is in one corner of a very large park, where there are park staff who can supervise play time while the adults go off to do something else. There are 27 staffed and fenced playgrounds in Copenhagen. Kind of like dropping your kids off at the pool and having a life guard present!
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