Play and School Street - Odense, Denmark

In order to be a health-promoting city and to stimulate the citizens’ taste for physical activity, instead of promoting diseases through noise and air pollution, the City of Odense decided to create three new urban spaces during 2010, with the vision “to play is to live”.

Roars Vej

The street Roars Vej is right next to an old school, which had two problems: first, during the morning rush hour there was a big chaos while parents dropped off their children; secondly, the school could not offer the students particularly good conditions during recess, as the school yard was very small.
Roars Vej was the first Play Street to open in Odense and to give children the opportunity for physical activities and inspiring games. Furthermore, the traffic was reduced in the morning, which made the street a safer place for children and other pedestrians.

Carl Baggers Vej

The City of Odense has also built a Play Island in the residential neighbourhood Carl Baggers Vej. As a result there was a significant reduction of speed, and the Play Island invites people with a peaceful surrounding to play and cycle.

Vestergade

Vestergade was a bus and bicycle street and was the optimal route for cyclists in terms from getting from A to B, hence the City of Odense couldn’t transform it completely into a pedestrian street. Therefore, they decided to create a shared space for pedestrians and cyclists. In order to keep the speed of cyclists down the City implemented some bumps on the street. Furthermore, they provided many items that invite to play such as table tennis.

In Depth

http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/2010/12/14/play-streets/