Cycling in Reykjavík?

An outdoor bike shop in Reykjavík during the summer. A place where you can repair or borrow a bike and have a coffee, whilst being a hub for ideas and events that open up discussions on infrastructure. The bike workshop will open up in downtown Reykjavík, in front of IÐNÓ, which is also offering space for the bike related events we’re planning. Bike Shop: Repair bike station, get your bike fixed, and/or learn how to do it yourself. Borrow a bike for a day. Coffee Bike: Mobile coffee cafe and terrace. Events: Organized discussions, documentary screenings.

There’s multiple problems incorporated within the project, but we’re focusing on the social implications of transportation. Reykjavík is a growing city, with more visitors and residents every year. Infrastructure is therefore under pressure. More traffic leads to road congestion, air quality problems and even though there’s more square meters of parking space than housing, there’s never enough parking space. All this leads to more hostile traffic conditions for cycling, whereas the solution to the problems might lie within more suitable infrastructure for cycling and social interaction.

On a personal note, I live 1.5km away from my workplace. A distance easily covered by bike, but I often just walk or take a ride in a car since the commute doesn’t feel safe. Google maps won’t even show the ‘cycling’ option, even though it’s just a downtown route. With Rockall we’re designing cultural exchanges with tangible projects based on the idea to rethink societal issues. It’s therefore a personal issue I’m passionate about promoting, as well as an interesting case for an organization like Rockall that’s researching utopian and dystopian scenarios in society.

We don’t have the illusion to solve the problem with this project, since the infrastructure system isn’t something one can change over the course of a summer with a small public intervention. As a project we can open up the discussion on infrastructure in the city, strengthen the cycling community and show citizens and policy makers the benefits of using a bike for urban transportation. We plan to do this by organizing workshops to educate on basic cycle repairs, do documentary screenings on cycling culture and organize events with different topics.

A summer of social interaction, education and fun through events, workshops and coffee is a direct contribution to the liveliness of the city. The project can also contribute to raising the awareness of policy makers and citizens of Reykjavík of the many different positive impacts of cycling and the opinion on the allocation of public resources. The benefits of more cycling are manyfold. Cycling can contribute to a more liveable city via less congestion, better air quality, less noise and more space for people, which creates happier and healthier citizens.

500,000 - 1,000,000

1-3 months

Most risks are covered by partnering up with different organizations and companies. We´ll collaborate with professional bike shops for the workshop/bike fixing. The coffee station will be covered by a catering company. The events we organize are hosted in IÐNÓ, which doesn't charge rent for our events. What could go wrong? The bikes that we lend out, could get stolen. The coffee bar will have to sustain itself financially. Due to bad weather this could be hard.

Other than the financial support for the physical station and labor for the bike fixing, we could use extra support in the promotion and documentation of the project. Since it is a priority in Reykjavík´s policies to promote cycling, both the project and the city will benefit from this.