Interview: "Shanghai Expo will be a huge success" -- Danish Odense Pavilion project manager

COPENHAGEN, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The preparation for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai is so perfect and the world fair will be a huge success, said Helle Thylkjaer, project manager for Denmark's Odense Pavilion in the expo's Urban Best Practice Area (UBPA).

"I have seen all the preparations, I think the expo will be a huge success. I invite all the Chinese people to come visit us at the UBPA section," Thylkjaer said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Thylkjaer said the preparation work in Shanghai is very impressive. "I have been visiting the city every two months for about two years to follow the preparation, and now I think the whole city is ready for the opening."

"I think the most important part is making an expo with a theme, because then you can collect all the knowledge from all over the world, and look at it in one place, and get inspired for the things you can do in the future," Thylkjaer said. "I hope that everyone will visit the expo and learn from it, and I hope all of us get wiser on how to build better and longer living cities."

The unique cycling culture of Odense, the birthplace of famous Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, has made the city a favorite selection for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, she said.

For the first time ever, Denmark will be represented by both a national pavilion and an urban pavilion at a world fair. Out of a total of 113 applicants, Odense was one of 55 selected for participation. The title of the Odense Pavilion is set as The Revival of the Bicycle and the pavilion was selected for participation on the basis of the project: Odense Cycle City.

The city will show examples of Denmark's unique cycling culture from Andersen's birthplace at "The Revival of the Bicycle" pavilion with an area of 500 square meters and a 150-meter-long cycling track.

The exhibition will describe the life of contemporary residents of the City of Fairy Tales, with individual stories, and deliberate choices about cycling, intelligent solutions in the areas of safety, exercise and health, combined with the tale on Danish quality, design and technology.

"We had a four-year plan about seven years ago, to promote the use of a bicycle instead of cars, and other kinds of traffic. We make new bicycle path and lanes, we make it easier to use the bike, we make a bicycle-riding trip faster than the one made by driving a car, he said.

He added, "And we made a lot of restrictions for the car use in the cities. We made a lot of campaign to encourage children to go to school by bike, and make the roads to the school much safer. We taught people the benefits of exercise, and why it was good to ride the bike instead of driving a car," she said.

"Within the new mobility plan, we will have fewer cars, more public transport, more bicycles and pedestrians. Not a total ban of cars in the city, of course, but in the inner city, the inner ring, there will be fewer cars," she said.

According to the official website of the World Expo 2010, in the Odense exhibition area, a demonstrative bicycle lane will be built with related traffic control devices installed properly to simulate traffic control.