Velo-City: Cycle Tracks Will Abound in Utopia
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.16.06
Those of us who try to ride bikes in the winter often wonder why cars get their own big right-of-way, transit riders get expensive underground subways, pedestrians get an elaborate network of underground walkways, and we, if lucky, get a white line on pavement marking a so-called bike lane filled with snow or cars.
Toronto Architect Chris Hardwicke wants to do something about it. He proposes "a high speed, all season, pollution free, ultra-quite transit system that makes people healthier. Using an infrastructure of elevated cycle tracks, velo-city creates a network across the City. "
"The elevated bikeways are enclosed in tubes to provide protection for all season cycling. The bikeway tubes are separated by direction of travel to create a dynamic air circulation loop the crates a natural tail-wind for cyclists. The reduction in air resistance increased the efficiency of cycling by about 90% allowing for speeds up to 40 Km/hr. Velo-City promotes exercise as an urban lifestyle."
Chris proposes a network of tubes that act as express lanes- this does not separate cyclists from the City but act like the subways do- moving people efficiently to hubs where they re-enter the City streets. (see map here) Because of the safety and the weather protection, people afraid of city cycling might do it instead of driving. Because of the increase in efficiency, people not quite as fit as the usual urban cyclist might give it a try.
330,000 people ride their bikes in Toronto. Imagine how many more would if such an infrastructure existed- safe, weather protected travel, being drafted along on top of the City. It is Utopia. ::Velo-City (site under construction)
There are many bike advocates who are opposed to all segregated cycling facilities. I suppose this is probably the ultimate segregated facility. I haven't made my mind up on the debate yet, but you can read more about it in this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregated_cycle_facilities
I don't know how practical that is, but it sure looks cool! ;-)
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
A more realistic photo would show the tube with grafiti all over it.
Interesting concept: it actually looks a lot like a proposal (TransGlide 2000™) by a guy in Denver, Colorado, that has been floating around for several years now. He has detailed descriptions of the system and lots of well-executed concept drawings on his site:
http://www.biketrans.com/
Bill Dunster architects in England, the designers of BedZED (Beddington Zero Emissions Development) in London, also have a somewhat related concept for a bike-centred urban development they call (surprise!) Velocity:
http://www.zedfactory.com/velocity/velocity.html
(A different) Chris
Elevated things tend to become an eyesore after a while. I do like the idea of a dedicated bicycle path a lot though when I used to ride my bike to a friends house I would always be afraid of cars. Ofcourse an area like mine wouldn't get this for the same reason we don't have any other reason to get around.. not dense enough. Toronto has underground pathways for walkers??
Yes! http://www.toronto.ca/path/
I see at least one substantial problem:
In case of an accident, think the mass pileups we get to see on the Tour de France, how will emergency services navigate those narrow tubes to get to the scene?
Toronto's underground walkways are limited and only cover the downtown core, but yeah, they do exist, and they're pretty neat. The system is called PATH.
Toronto has very, VERY few dedicated bike lanes and gets a LOT of snow, so this may be more ideal for us here than it seems. I would certainly love to see it. However, I agree that most above-ground constructions tend to become eyesores. There's continual debate about dismantling highways that run above-ground. I can't imagine that people will be that on-board for this.
Why should only bicyclists get this? Why not all small/socially responsible forms of transit? Pedestrians, cyclists (of all number of wheels), skateboarders, electric scooterers, rollerskaters, etc., should be encouraged and accomodated, if we want people to really embrace sustainable tranportation. I'm also wondering, wouldn't it be a pain in the butt to maintain?
Oh, and just as a note, not all cyclists consider themselves lucky when a city decides to put in a segregated bike lane. Personally, it makes me feel like some second class citizen who's being shunted to the edge of the public road, and makes it hard for me, as a cyclist, to drive safely in the very dense urban area I live in. Being so far over to the right makes me less visible and means I have to worry about all the other vehicle drivers who need to make right turns. (I obviously understand why some other folks like having special lanes - they are afraid of other traffic and think that being seperated from it is better - but in my experience segregated bike lanes cause more problems than they solve, and they encourage people who may not know how to legally bike in traffic to bike in traffic.) Nah, just give me a regular old travel lane and the knowledge of my rights and responsibilities, and I'm much better off.
Why should only bicyclists get this? Why not all small/socially responsible forms of transit? Pedestrians, cyclists (of all number of wheels), skateboarders, electric scooterers, rollerskaters, etc., should be encouraged and accomodated, if we want people to really embrace sustainable tranportation. I'm also wondering, wouldn't it be a pain in the butt to maintain?
Oh, and just as a note, not all cyclists consider themselves lucky when a city decides to put in a segregated bike lane. Personally, it makes me feel like some second class citizen who's being shunted to the edge of the public road, and makes it hard for me, as a cyclist, to drive safely in the very dense urban area I live in. Being so far over to the right makes me less visible and means I have to worry about all the other vehicle drivers who need to make right turns. (I obviously understand why some other folks like having special lanes - they are afraid of other traffic and think that being seperated from it is better - but in my experience segregated bike lanes often cause more problems than they solve, and they encourage people who may not know how to legally bike in traffic to bike in traffic.) Nah, just give me a regular old travel lane and the knowledge of my rights and responsibilities, and I'm much better off.
I used to be ideologically opposed to bike lanes- the road belongs to all of us and I am allowed to be there. Then the drivers started getting crazier and faster and cutting around more closely and it got to the point where I plan my routes around the bike lanes. Knowing my rights and responsibilities does not protect me from the celphone-talking matron in the SUV.
This is not the answer, this is merely an excuse for the road hogs to push cyclists even further off the road.
I don't know what the answer is, but $50 per gallon for petrol would be a start (a very devisive one, but a start nonetheless).
What is the environmental impact of building this?
I live in belgium, in the province Limburg. until 1992 we had mines in limburg and a railway to transport the coals to harbors etcetera. We don't use them anymore. So they removed the rails poured some concrete and made something which very much looks like bycicle-highways. They even got exits like a highway. Thanks to these bycicle-highways and a lot of touristical routes we now got a new form of tourism in limburg. bycicle tourism. In haspengouw a part of limburg you can rent a bike with a GPS and at certain spots the GPS wil start telling you stories about local folklore.
Wow. I mean WOW. What a beautiful plan. I am so proud of this city. Toronto is always busy with new plannings to save earth. But this is one giant step. I wonder when this project will be ready for use for public. Best part is you can use it in any season making it extremely usefrndly even in fierce weather in winter.
we have solutions for the bikers and their vehicules, the project can be runned by private companies or by local administration.
This could be the future for the cities with car problems and ecological problems. We already have the belgian national railway company as a user in different railwaystations.
ECOMOB is the solution, we can customise the idea to the needs of the locations and city demands.
To find more about it, come and look at our site:
www.foturis.com
here is something for you!!! almost as good as a suspended cabling system for bikers!!!
DottoreNova: we have something like that in Quebec. And old train line that is now a bike highway... you can get all the way to uberswank Mt Treblant from Montreal by bike!
...and Lloyd; you oughta try the divers in Montreal. They're way scarier than here in Toronto... but i agree withyou about the paths... many days i get on the path at my corner and do the bikelane network to get where i need to go, and it is a pretty awesome path....
neat concept. I commute from West Seattle to downtown Seattle along a bike route. With Seattle's rainy weather a hamster tunnel would be great. But how would you cool the the plastic tube during even moderate sunny weather?
I'm very interested in this idea of above-ground cycle tracks. How do I contact the architect? In Chicago, the Park District is getting some funding to study the extension of its lakefront bike path, something many of us cyclists would like to see, but there is great community opposition to filling in the lake to do so (see www.rpcan.org/sol/). We'd like to explore alternatives.
I live in belgium, in the province Limburg. until 1992 we had mines in limburg and a railway to transport the coals to harbors etcetera. We don't use them anymore. So they removed the rails poured some concrete
Here in the U.S. that is called "Rails to Trails" Here in South Dakota we have one that is 150 miles long
Gary Fisher had this idea posted on his site a while back...
This may be the best idea anyone has ever had. Realy!
I liked the idea so much after seeing it featured in The Toronto Star in late April, I have applied considerable thought toward it and began to envision it as a key component to a plan that would combine the Copenhagen model and the Millenium Bike Station project in Chicago and have arranged a meeting with the Chairman of the Toronto Bicycle Committee in order to gain their support for a feasibility study. I believe that, like cars, bicycles should have segrated and integrated bikeways and see this concept as the answer. As the previous post said 'this may be the greatest idea ever. Really.'
"Elevated things tend to become an eyesore after a while."
Actually, the elevated pedestrian tunnels in downtown Minneapolis have remained quite attractive.
Kinda cool, but I reckon impractical. As for "skateboarders" - how are they social responsible? aggressive punks who get in the way give a bad name to all!
I remember seeing an idea like this elsewhere, but this took it further in making it a workable alternative to the car in that it had the concept of using fans to move air through the cycle tunnels, so that a cyclist moving at say 30MPH ground speed would be effectively cycling in still air. Given that air resistance is as I understand it the biggest barrier to going faster than 20MPH (about 32KPH for metric people), this would mean that a fit cyclist could easily hit maybe 35-40MPH instead, whereas otherwise only ultra-fit Tour de France cyclist types are capable of that. It would also be a boost for slower cyclists as well. Only two problems are the hazard of crashing at that speed:getting a flat tyre could be seriously dangerous; and that the windchill might be a problem in a Canadian winter. Perhaps worth consideration all the same?
Mr. LaFortune,
Please email me re your meeting with the chairmen and the feasibility study. I am a real estate developer - on the surface this is a great idea and I'd like to dig deeper.
Regards
sdugganmail@gmail.com