three new stops for the harbour ferry

/

Until the end of last month, Havnebuser - the harbour buses or harbour ferries in Copenhagen - have run from Refshaleøen, at the north end of the harbour, to Teglholmen in the south harbour with eight ferry stops. *

Now, there are two new stops in the south harbour and in April the service will be extended north with the ferries sailing on from Refshaleøen to Nordhavn and a new ferry stop at Orientkaj.

Islands Brygge, on the Amager or east side of the harbour, about 600 metres south of the bridge at Fisketorvet, and Enghave Brygge on the west or city side of the harbour, came into operation on 27 February.

These will serve new areas of housing, on both sides of the harbour, close to HC Ørestedværket - the power station, constructed in the 1930s, that is now an important and iconic historic building in the south harbour.

These new stops are almost opposite each other, so they also provide an important cross-harbour link for pedestrians and cyclists. The Enghave Brygge ferry stop will be less than 200 metres from a new metro station that will open in 2024 and Islands Brygge Syd is just 300 metres from the edge of Amager Fælled so there will be an important link from the city side to the large and popular open area of park.

In April, when the harbour ferry service is extended on from Refshaleøen to Nordhavn and a new ferry terminal at Orientkaj, the journey time from Nyhavn to Orientkaj will take 39 minutes.

Movia, the operating company, have added two new electric-powered ferries to their current fleet of five. The electric ferries came into service in 2019 and each can carry 80 passengers and with space on the front deck for eight bikes and four wheelchairs or prams.

These ferries provide an important and successful service for commuters but there is a growing problem with overcrowding because they are now also a popular water bus for tourists.

For safety, the number of passengers on each ferry is strictly controlled - at busy times people are counted on and counted off - so it is frustrating if you wait for a ferry but do not manage to get on because not enough passengers have disembarked. The ferries now run every 30 minutes so more ferries at peak times might help but differential pricing with preferential rates for commuters has to be considered.

the metro, the bus and the ferry January 2019
new ferries for the harbour May 2020

press release on the new stops from movia

the ferry stop at Nyhavn and the new apartments on Papirøen

 
 

* a ferry stop at Holmen Nord - north of Operaen and just south of Nyholm - was closed when it was found that the new electric ferries could not manoeuvre safely around the large number of hire boats in the tight space at the bridge where Danneskjold Samsøes Allé crosses over the channel between Tømmergraven - the inner area of water - and Flådens Leje and the main harbour

can Lynetteholm be car free?

/

A recent article in the newspaper Politiken has suggested that the proposed development of Lynetteholm, on a new island to be constructed across the entrance to the harbour, will not be designed to be car free even though the initial plans included good links by public transport.

A new report has concluded that by making the residential areas completely car free, property and land values would be reduced so the sums do not stack up for the returns required to make the project viable.

The report by the consulting engineers Rambøll and MOE Tetraplan looked at three scenarios for the new island from almost completely car-free (10 to 15 cars per 1,000 inhabitants) through partially car-free (120 to 130 cars) and also without restrictions imposed so with average car ownership of 250 cars per 1,000 residents.

If the development goes ahead, there would be homes on Lynetteholm for around 35,000 people and jobs for 35,000.

However, this new island is not simply a development for homes and jobs but also has a complicated part in the construction a barrier that is necessary to protect the harbour from storm surges and there should also be recreational areas along the new shoreline that will attract people from all over the city.

Initial plans for the island included a link to the metro that would be a 'relatively' straightforward extension of the recently-opened line to Nordhavn but the new report has concluded that a metro line would only generate the level of service required, if there were no cars on the island and if the line was built to complete an arc across Amager so to continue round to the metro station at Christianshavn and then on under the harbour in a new tunnel to the central railway station and that, of course, that would add very considerably to the cost.

The report also suggests that the harbour ferry service, that now terminates at Refshaleøen, should not just be extended to Lynetteholm but, if the area is to be completely free of cars, would have to run every ten minutes rather than every 30 minutes with the present service.

Lynette after.jpeg

new ferries for the harbour

/

Copenhagen is to have new, battery-powered, ferries for the regular service up and down the harbour.

Movia, the operating company, have taken delivery of five of the ferries and they are now being put through the last stages of testing before going into regular service and I'm not sure I like them.

Don't get me wrong. They are exactly the right way to go for the environment and it’s impressive technology. After all, they are large vessels that will carry around 90 passengers and they will have to work hard through every day on a 7 kilometre route from Teglhomen to Refshaleøen. Batteries will be completely recharged at night but will be topped up at each end of the route on the brief turn around.

So my objections?

Well there are two but basically they come down to much the same thing. Because they don't sound right and they don't look right so they don't feel right.

I will have to wait until they are in service before I see inside and can judge what they are like for passengers but recently, as I was taking photographs of the CPH container housing at Refshaleøen, one of the new ferries snuck into the dock and snuck seems like the right word.

At first, I thought it was drifting but then it came round the corner of the quay sideways, like a crab, and pulled forward to the ramp with little more than a gentle hum but quite a lot of bubbles. It's going to take some getting used to …. I realised then that I like the churning water and the deep throb of the engine you get on the old ferries and maybe that’s simply because they sound as if they really can take on the weather and the rain and everything that the harbour and the Sound will throw at them. The old ferries are reassuring - not in a comfort blanket way but you know what I mean.

I like standing on the back platform of a ferry as the churn of the water and the sound of the engines drown out any inane chatter around me so, even on a busy day, I can focus on the view and the light over the harbour - from dazzling sun to lowering steel grey of an imminent storm - and I suspect I'm going to miss that. For a start, the new ferries do not have an open platform at the back.

And the new ferries look too swish - so sharply angled rather than reassuringly rounded - so stylish but somehow not solid. They don't look as if they were built in a shipyard but somehow look as if they were manufactured in a nice clean factory. No obvious plates of heavy metal and rivets from ship builders who know how to build a vessel that would survive most things that could happen at sea … and I know it’s a sheltered harbour but at the north end, around Refshaleøen, it's more open and exposed and more like real sea than the tamed and domesticated water at the south end of the harbour.

I have to confess that, of the ferries now in service, I even preferred the older ferries with their steps at the back of the cabin, only marginally less steep than a ladder, with a hefty iron door at the top to get to the back deck and a bulkhead you had to step over rather than the more recent version with fully-glazed patio doors that knew you were approaching so opened automatically … well at least they did as you moved from inside to outside but with a well disguised button to get from outside on the deck to back inside.

The new ferry I saw 'dropped' its ramp down and even that glided and hovered and it looked narrower and looked light and for some strange reasons, that I don't quite understand, I know I'm going to miss the ramps of the old ferries that drop down onto the pontoon with an almighty clang that makes everyone jump - even hardened commuters who use the ferry twice a day every day - but, somehow, that's a solid and reliable sound.

Basically, the new boats don't sound or look like a workhorse ferry but like a tourist water bus.

 

update - Hilton Hotel on the harbour

/

Work is moving forward to convert the old Nordea Bank offices for a new Hilton Hotel on this prominent harbour site by Knippelsbro. Now you can see just how high the extra story will be and you can see just how the hotel will break through to the quay - to colonise it as an attractive new feature - a valuable commercial asset - for the new hotel.

And in return ……… the city gets some new steps down to the quay from the bridge.

The old office building was much too big and, with hefty concrete cladding, brutal and ugly but in part it was those things for clear reasons. When it was constructed in the 1950s, the harbour was a working port and not a tourist destination and this was the offices of the Burmeister & Wain ship yard that was crucial for providing jobs for the city and was a major player in the post-war effort by the country to restore the economy. Looking pretty was not on the design brief.

But right here, right now, if the Hilton Group had cleared the site and started again, a scheme for a building of that size and in that position would not be given planning permission.

And then they pushed the boundaries by asking for and getting permission to add an extra floor on a building that was already too big.

Until last year I lived in an apartment buildings to the south, behind the church, and looked out across the top of the trees in the churchyard with a clear sky line broken only by the church tower and with no one looking in. Then work started and the Nordea building took a deep breath and puffed out and began to loom over the trees.

Those apartment buildings are not the most stunning design but they are well designed and carefully designed to create pleasant living space and good streetscapes on land where there had been dry docks and sheds that no one could see a way of preserving after the yards closed. More to the point, planning controls kept the apartment buildings to the same overall height as the gutter or eaves of the church …. so not to the overall height of the church roof and not to the overall height of the spire but to the height of the body of the church. That development showed at least some respect for the historic buildings that still do and still should dominate the area.

In the general sweep of things I'm only a visitor to the city so it is not my place to be offended on behalf of københavnerne - who are certainly more than capable of defending their own values - but there seems to be something basically undemocratic about these huge international hotels that break the spirit if not the letter of Janteloven. The Hilton will make use of the nearby metro - though I guess most guests will arrive by taxi - and the ferry is at the back door to serve hotel guests and the quay will make a ‘picturesque’ backdrop from their harbour-side café or bar but I'm not exactly sure what citizens get back in return. Presumably, that huge glazed new top floor will be expensive restaurants and spaces for events but how many people in the city will ever use that unless they go just once to see what is up there. They don't need another ‘new perspective’ to see over their own city or a viewing platform to look down on their fellow citizens.

 

the metro, the bus and the harbour ferry in Copenhagen

/
 

With the start of a new year this is clearly a time for new plans and new schemes in the city. On the 24th January, the government launched a reorganisation of public transport in Copenhagen.

Metroselskabet - the company who now control the city Metro - will be combined with Movia who run city bus services and the Havnebuser or harbour ferry service.

The new overarching organisation is to be called Hovestadens Offentlige Transport / Metropolitan Public Transport or HOT for short and will cover the provision of transport across 34 municipalities.

Will HOT replace or at least change the responsibilities of DOT - Din Offentlige Transport / Your Public Transport that was set up in 2014? This was formed by DSB - the operators of regional trains - with Movia and Metroselskabet in order to coordinate strategy and to provide a single access point for passengers who need information about ticketing and times and so on across the system.

The reorganisation appears to be a sensible attempt to coordinate transport across the city and certainly at a sensible time … so before the completion and the opening of the new inner ring of the metro. Metroselskabet was set up by the city and by the port authority and has been organised primarily for the construction work and for the completion and opening of the metro system and not for the ongoing running of the metro system.

However, there has already been criticism - not least from Movia.

Current transport is organised across the region - so across Sjæland - and includes the suburban rail system but at this stage, as far as I can see, the S trains will not be included in the remit of the new body. Some have also been critical because this does not include any new money so seems to be simply about co-ordination and synchronisation and does not tackle capacity or improvements as such with no provision for additional equipment. This is important because the current metro line is running at almost full capacity … good in terms of the economics but not so good for passenger comfort.

To be fair, it may well be better to make further decisions after the new metro line opens this summer because the new line is bound to establish very different travel patterns for people in the city … at the very least it creates important new interchange points for swapping between one mode of transport and another and in the months after the opening will certainly reveal new congestion points in the system.

Metroselskabet
Movia
DOT

note:

Back in June, Movia announced that new harbour ferries will go into service in January 2020. These will be electric - recharging overnight but also topping up batteries at both ends of the route at Refshaleøen and Teglholmen. The new service will run every 30 minutes. As the service carries 425,000 passengers each year, this is an important and - with so many new apartments being built at the south harbour - a significant part of the city transport system.

the harbour ferry - a video by Magasinet KBH

/
 

Back in February the online magazine site Magasinet KBH posted a video that shows the journey of the ferry from the south end of the harbour at Teglholmen to the landing stage at Nordre Tolbod.

The camera was set up on the front of a ferry so you see the whole harbour at ferry speed including turning in and docking at each of the landing stages and then backing out before heading on north. The film takes about 44 minutes because the ferry takes about 44 minutes and this really is the antidote to the swipe right and move on approach to much on the Web. This is slow web at its best and 44 minutes is not download but run time.

I took the ferry down to the south end of the harbour to take the photographs for posts here so it seemed like a good time to include this with a link to their site.

 

note:

Magasinet KBH is an online magazine with articles on buildings and planning in Copenhagen with general architecture and environmental news and interesting opinion pieces. There is also a regular news letter that you can sign up to receive automatically. It is in Danish but translating the tab in Safari or Chrome works well. 

Magasinet KBH