Core77

In the quest to protect pedestrians from those mainstays of morning radio, Traffic and Weather, urban planners worldwide use a host of design solutions.

Tokyo likes elevated walkways at crossings, since pedestrians twenty feet off the ground cannot get hit by cars (assuming the Japanese government maintains their General Lee ban).

Minneapolis has an elevated Skyway system of footbridges, allowing building-to-building jaunts that avoid the brutal cold.

Snowy Montreal does the same with their "underground city" network of tunnels.

But an outdoor pedestrian/cyclist bridge in Norkopping, Sweden is our favorite. Although the Tullhus Bridge, designed by architecture firm Erik Andersson, is open-air, the surface is insulated and features built-in heating. In the dead of winter, cyclists can sail across it without worrying about ice; pedestrians get a brief respite from trudging through snow.

We'd love to see this in New York, but of course, it wouldn't work here as a walkway; once the temperature got down to a certain level, a heated footbridge would be lined with our homeless people lying down on it.

More: Architecture • Comments (4)

Tweet