DESIGN MIAMI 2011
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2011
DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2011
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2011
Posted by hipstomp | 15 Jan 2010
|
Comments (7)
Sooooo fresh: Designer Martin Angelov's not-for-the-faint-of-heart "Kolelinia" elevated bike lane concept would provide overhead space for two-wheeled travel. The steel track would feature a guy wire to attach your bicycle to at the handlebar level, and while the traffic fumes up there might kill you, the view's bound to be better.
One rather important detail that needs to be worked out is how to get on and off the track in the first place, and of course, there will be no overtaking.
via green muze
Comments
Wow, great concept!
The fumes problem can be solved by wearing some sort of small mask, not just a helmet.
As to operate this, it could be done just like a bus / metro, with pre-established routes and stops. One operator on each end of a route, who observes via wi-fi the amount of people on a track as well as the weight ratio.
What this idea now needs is a couple of good engineers and some funding.
Damn, i'm almost speechless :)
The inherent danger of this is far too likely to squash this concept. A lot of liability will be put on the coupling mechanism as well.
Yet another well-drawn but unbuildable bike "concept". Any bicyclist can immediately point out huge flaws in it. The most obvious is that it the handlebar attachment won't work for 90% of bicycles; likewise, the width of track and height of side-stays only allow one size of bike.
Also, it's incredibly dangerous. A breakdown of any kind on the track would be a disaster: path blocked, bicyclist can't escape on foot & is stranded in midair over a busy intersection. If anyone ever falls off of this, they are immediately crushed under heavy traffic.
But most of all: by the time you've acquired the right-of-way and built the towers for this structure, you've incurred half of the planning, work & expense of building a proper suspension bridge with a proper path. This concept is really not that much cheaper than a normal bridge.
Finally: why should human-powered travelers have to put in the extra work & take all this risk? The car drivers have gas engines for power and giant metal boxes to protect them -- perhaps they could be asked to climb a treacherous floating overpass instead?
what happens when your chain falls off?
As an outspoken bicycling advocate and an industrial designer, I am going to be the first to say that I think this is a terrible, terrible idea.
What we need is not a brand new form of infrastructure of dubious safety and practicality, and definite complication and expense; we just need a tiny fraction of the space on roadways dedicated to alternative forms of transportation.
Design isn't going to save the world in isolation, and as sexy as a crazy new kind of bike travel is, developing this idea isn't anywhere near as significant as modest lobbying in developed channels towards defined urban planning goals.
Interesting advantage: because of its design, an individual who doesn't know how to ride a bike could still use the aerial bike line.
At first glance, I thought "Awesome!". As a bike commuter, whizzing above traffic and taking direct paths to my destination sounded like a big improvement. Plus, it looks thrilling.
Then I thought what I like most about biking: freedom. Taking a detour through a park to enjoy the greenery, impulsively stopping at a new shop that I hadn't noticed before, pulling over to chat with a friend, hopping up on a sidewalk to get around a bus or pizza delivery guy, etc. Being able to do whatever, whenever, is what I enjoy most about biking and being constricted to a rail would negate all that pleasure.