noisebeam

Just a hairbrained idea I had last night out riding.

How about a bike lane sweeper? - bike powered of course. A city job/sponsored activity, a slow (due to nature of work) pedal powered bike sweeper (with rolling broom in front) that navigates all the BLs and keeps them clean.

Would provide visibilty to their use and if they are safe place to ride it should not be an issue. Also good for an official first line or reporting issues. Surely there is some way to get them to be at the same or lower cost that street sweeper - they could be a volunteer job, but sanctioned by city or something like that.

(please redirect all BL debate to the bike lane sticky, this post is mainly for fun...)

Al

JohnBrooking

That's a great idea! You ought to find a wrench to create a prototype and shop it around to city governments! You can be the demonstration rider! And you must post pictures here, of course!

BeTheChange

I was thinking of the same thing at one point. But I was just thinking of attaching a broom on my rear rack and dragging it behind me. I as thinking It just needs to be hinged for when I'm not sweeping and have the broom head at an angle so that the refuse in the bike lane would get swept to the side. It would take a few passes but I don't mind riding. I thought of having the broom in the front but I think that would be kinda dangerous and you couldn't get enough pressure on the brush. If it was on the back of the bike you could weight it heavily and it wouldn't make it any less safe. I'm glad I'm not the only one crazy enough to think of this.

ItsJustMe

It needs to be a cylindrical, powered brush, mounted at an angle, brushing forwards and towards the curb. Just dragging something along the path will just drag junk along, not brush it to the side like you'd want. Really what you want is to pick stuff up, that might be doable as well, you could have a concave dustpan type rig that stuff got swept onto and up, then tossed into a bin.

It's going to have to be on the back of a trike, you won't be able to go fast enough to keep balance well.

You're also going to have to ride some pretty DAMN puncture-proof tires, if you're going to be riding around all day in the broken-glass lane.

noisebeam

This is exactly how I envisioned it, a rotating brush, powered of course by pedals, I imagine bike has low gearing, cruises along 8mph or so using a very fit engine.

Yeah, removing the material is the hard part, moving it to either side easier. I figure it could be pushed up against the gutter.

Of course thought its a hairbrained idea. We have street sweepers (just very rarely) and why would a less effective (no vacuum) bike sweeper happen at any higher frequency (unless it was a vounteer job that folks wanted to do)


Al

genec

I was thinking the along the same lines, but thought more of a three wheel maintenance vehicle. Pedal powered of course... small crew assigned to different areas of the city... as they finally finished, they would turn around and start all over again... Much like painters of the Golden Gate.

Something that had a revolving brush would be cool, but the reality is that just a three wheel bike with a broom and other basic tools would do quite well.

Jeeze, can you imagine a cycling job with full benefits. I am sure it would suit some.

noisebeam

This morning riding to work I saw a city maintenance truck with a bike on the sturdy front rack. Not a police bike, but part of the maintenance truck package. I wonder what its for?

Al

Hawkear

While this sounds like a fun, yet impractical idea, I have noticed that roads with wide outer lanes and no bike lane don't have as much debris as the roads with dedicated bike lanes.

*dons asbestos flame suit*

Helmet Head

Reminds me of the story about the truck stuck in the tunnel... Turns out the tunnel opening was a bit taller than the tunnel height inside and it got jammed up against the ceiling of the tunnel. So all these engineers are standing around scratching their heads and talking about various complicated solutions to getting the truck out, when a little boy comes up and says, "why don't you let the air out of the tires?".

So here we have all these intelligent people discussing complicated and expensive measures on how to keep bike lanes swept clean... what might the little boy suggest?

?sepirts enal ekib eht esare tsuj uoy t'nod yhW

noisebeam

Don't you see the avenue I was taking.
1. Cyclist demand BLs
2. Cyclist demand they stay clean
3. Cyclist demand they be kept clean thru a mode that is matched to their purported safest use (i.e. pedal power)
4. City says can't do it too complicated and expensive
5. Cyclist then says if you can't keep BL clean then don't build them at all

ps - 'intelligent' people like to have conversations about crazy ideas too, it stimulates the imagination!

Al

genec

And yet cities have street sweepers... so apparently the streets must need some cleaning beyond the periodic wiping of the tires of thousands.

For those of you thinking that pushing a broom is a complicated task... perhaps you should stay off the bike.

Hawkear

It's not that it's a complicated task, it's too expensive, really (unless you get volunteers to do this, which I doubt will happen). Cities already have street sweepers, like you said, and they usually include the bike lanes in their paths. How often these streets are swept is a different issue. A lot of residential areas have weekly street cleaning, but on major roads the cars do most of the sweeping - the debris ends up collected in the gutter or the bike lane. On my commutes, I have yet to see some of the streets I ride on ever cleaned. There is some nasty stuff in those bike lanes, too.

genec

Too expensive? Compared to what... the gardners that cut the grass at city schools and parks, or cops that shoo the same unemployed out of the bushes every week...

This city has beach maintenance crews that "comb" the beaches... some every morning, and you believe that broom pushers would be "too expensive."

Perhaps in San Diego they might be "expensive" where we have one of the most ludicrous pension plans around... but I doubt that this task is any more "expensive" then the hundreds of other maint tasks that a city does.

Daily Commute

It could work--as long as you used airless tires.

Helmet Head

Primarily they need to sweep the gutters...

Rincewind8

How about having the broom up front, in front of two wheels and just one wheel in the back?! Then the junk/broken glass would mostly be swept away before the tires roll over it. Just an idea...

noisebeam

Also note here in phoenix-metro many suburban arterials are lined with rock, desert landscaping on the shoulders. The city has landscaping crews on a most near continual basis on these streets who spray weekkiller and trim the over watered desert plants which grow at 10x rate compared to ones getting natural amounts of water. Where there are not city owned lands, private landscapers do the same.

Where do all these debris from landscaping work get blown by the gas powered leaf blowers (used to 'sweep' the rocks)? - into the street, primarily the bike lane of course, often the 'lighter' rocks get blown too.

Al

Jeprox

Here in my area of commute, the bike lanes get sweeped once a week. The problem is they're clean only the day they are sweeped. It makes me wonder where all the broken glass debris come from. Is it falling from the sky?
The suggestion of getting a better/greener sweeper is a swell idea, specially if the sweeping is done daily.

ofofhy

In Philly I encounter a lot of glass from smash and grab car thefts. Also a lot of green, beer/wine bottle glass from people chucking bottles into the street.

noisebeam

1/wk is incredible. I see the same chunks of debris (way off to my right) months on end & name them.

My commute is not the same if Billy the Bolt hasn't been swept a bit further up the road to sooner meet Wanda the Washer who is stuck, embedded in Chris the Caulk. Now of course I wouldn't expect Wanda and Chris to be swept away, there stuck in love, but surely Billy (along with Glassy Glen and Ricky Rock and their extended families) shouldn't still be hanging around after all these months.

Al

ArizonaAdam

I've even complained to the county here in Vegas, they said they would look into it, but the rocks and glass remain in the bike lanes I use. Who needs a fancy street sweeper. Here's a (tongue-in-cheek) idea, start kicking the rocks into the street as you go buy, get enough broken windshields and turn the cagers into unwilling advocates in complaining to the city to clean up. You'll notice generally, rocks don't stay on roads because cars kick them up, so if there are fewer rocks on wide streets than in bike lanes, doesn't this just mean that cars are generally respecting bike lanes??
Adam

Helmet Head

How many problems does a solution have to cause before you recognize that the "solution" is a bigger problem than the problem it was supposed to solve in the first place?

What if you can't even identify the problem the "solution" is supposed to solve?

nova

Quad recumbant would be better i think. Battery ran electric vacume brush in rear of vacume head flicking the junk towards the rear facing vacume head. For tires you could use airless (you wont be doing more than 10 mph on such a thing. It would be fairly easy to build a demonstration model. If you didnt go full scale you could build it from a dust buster rc car motor and brush from one of those sweepers that you push with out a motor. Then get some wooden dow rods to build the frame a toy horse drawn wagon for the wheels and other asorted bits. Then its just a matter of cutting and glueing the frame out of dows scaling to fit the dust buster cordless (non brush type) instaling a small elect motor and belt drive for the brushh and making the mounts.

The reason i say quad recumbant based is its width would be about right to be finished with 2 to 3 passes per road at most. You could get a little more complex and add 2 rolling brushes that would take the entire lane and kick the debrei towars the center right between the front wheels and in to the rear brush. This is basically how full sized street sweepers are made. But they have round brush heads rotating inwards cocked at a 45 deg angle. On any bike set up this would be to heavy to move so dual roller type brushes to save weight.

77Univega

--- It stimulated lots of discussion. Nevertheless, whether the street does or does not have a bike lane, keeping it free of glass is a relevant issue and I'm always grateful to see the street sweeper. I wonder how European cities keep their streets clean for cyclists.

Helmet Head

I don't find keeping the pavement free of glass to be a relevant issue on roads without bike lanes. Broken glass, and all debris, gets pushed aside way into the gutter - well to the right of where I ride, by moving traffic much faster (within hours if not minutes) than it could ever be swept up by, say, a weekly sweeping.