EnigManiac

From the Toronto Star:

Hot wheels, high up
BIKE LANES |
Apr. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
JENNIFER WELLS


Good morning, Toronto. It's sunny and minus 40 with the wind chill. Traffic is frozen on the Gardiner. There's a pile-up on the DVP. Streetcars on King West and Queen East are at a standstill.

Cyclists, however, are once again enjoying a smooth, unobstructed journey into the downtown core. Riders report that visibility is clear, with speeds approaching 50 kilometres an hour in the right-hand lane. For all you high-powered money managers who like to look sharp in the a.m., the shower stall at the Yonge on/off ramp has reopened. And, yes, the city has once again stocked up on that French lavender soap that has been such a hit on Bay Street.

What? You don't believe it?

All right, so the part about the French soap is a bit of over-reach.

But ask local architect Chris Hardwicke about the future of cycling in Toronto, and he will draw you a vision of elevated bike tunnels that could remake the very culture of the city.

He calls it Velo-city or, more properly, velo-city, and it's catching international notice, from Hardwicke's appearance on National Public Radio in the U.S. earlier this year, to numerous international publications, to his scheduled presentation at the Good Life For All exhibition in New York City this September.

The vision: a network of elevated bikeways, tube-like and roofed in glass, providing protection from the elements. Hardwicke has mapped the velo-city network, tucking the bikeways along existing public highway, power and railway corridors, creating not a dense inner-city network, but rather one that connects distant parts of the metropolis. Cyclists will access the bikeways, which will run about five metres above ground level, through ramps tucked under the tubes. The planned grade of the ramps will be gentle enough to accommodate wheelchair usage.

According to Hardwicke's calculations, reduction in air resistance will increase cycling efficiency by about 90 per cent, allowing for speeds, or velocity, of up to 50 km/h. Advantages: no noise pollution, no air pollution. Plus, cycling is good for you, and in this conception bike riders are protected from their car-driving brethren.

The scheme sounds futuristic, yet it is not entirely new. Joseph Adler, an irrepressibly charming engineer, was possessed of a similar vision a quarter century ago: elevated bikeways built not alongside highways, but above roadways crisscrossing Toronto's inner city. On top of the bikeways Adler conceptualized bike stations with restroom and restaurant facilities. The plan calls for interconnecting escalators to assist riders heading up into the bikeways, and ramps for the trip down to street level.


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`Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future

of the human race'

H.G. Wells, author and avid cyclist

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By training Adler is a hydrotechnical engineer, but cycling is his passion. Just inside the door of his high-rise apartment sits his 25-year-old blue Peugeot, which he rides regularly. Behind the doorway sits his downhill skis. He is 75. In his position as president of Bicycle Expressway Systems, a one-man hobbyist operation, he is currently pitching his bicycle expressway to Dubai, figuring that any desert country with the moxie to build an indoor ski hill just might have the imagination to get behind his project.

Not that there hasn't been interest. Included in Adler's archive are supporting letters from Maurice Strong, William F. Buckley Jr. and endless Canadian politicians and bureaucrats. In 1982, Buckley wrote an op-ed piece for The Philadelphia Inquirer championing the bike expressway. "Adler's idea is adaptable to any city," wrote Buckley. "But concretely, he has engineered ... a bicycle grid that would permit anyone living in metropolitan Toronto (they call it "metro" nowadays) to travel by bicycle from virtually any point in the city."

As it happens, nothing concrete has developed. "The visionaries don't have any money," sighs Adler. "And those with money don't have the vision."

That disconnect has much to do with the perceptions around cycling. Is cycling an add-on method of transportation or an essential service that demands and deserves substantial capital investment? Adler's projected cost: $1 billion.

Chris Hardwicke is 38. He had never heard of Joseph Adler or his bicycle expressway until earlier this year, when Adler called him up. The two have not yet met. They share a sense of despair over the lack of serious funding for cycling. "All the other infrastructures are supported in grandiose ways," says Hardwicke.

Hardwicke's velo-city has not been conceived as an anti-car project, but rather as a system that elevates bike riding to equal status alongside private transit (the car) and public transit (GO, TTC). "The people seem to like to cycle," says Hardwicke of Torontonians. "But they don't have any support ... It's about time we built something that's sustainable."

Points to consider: a bicycle takes one-seventh the road space of a car. Ergo, Hardwicke's bikeways, conceived at an equivalent width, will have seven times the capacity of the adjacent roadways. Velo-city will relieve traffic congestion and the demand for parking spaces. The greater vision extends to this: creating a vibrant cycling city that will feed a proliferation of thriving businesses, cultural activities, restaurants and cafés. Bike riders, surveys have shown, are excellent shoppers.

In the draft for his Good Life presentation, Hardwicke has written this: "Over time, velo-city will create a cycling culture for Toronto: kiss 'n' rides, shower facilities, velodromes, bike parks, health clubs, cycle-path stalls, repair shops, bike couriers, bike picnics, car-free housing, inter-modal stations and cycling fashions. Above all, it would encourage active, healthier lifestyles and consequently better lives for all Torontonians."

Sound fanciful? In an interview Hardwicke says he senses immense energy in the city right now. "There's a huge desire for change," he says. In his work, Hardwicke has cited a quotation from H. G. Wells. "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle," wrote Wells, "I no longer despair for the future of the human race." The author was an avid cyclist.

Here's another Wells quote that seems to suit the circumstance: "What really matters is what you do with what you have."


Only moments after writing in to the editor of the Star in response to an open invitation to submit innovative, creative---even wacky---ideas for the city, and offering a number of proposals, particularly as they relate to bicycle-commuting, I turn the page and find this article! Here I was suggesting the city install a Millenium Bike Station-like facility, it is mentioned in the above article. It was as if Chris Hardwicke, the architecht of the velo-city had crawled inside my brain and extracted my ideas. And while I hadn't conceived of bike tubes in spite of how much they make sense for cold, snowy winter days or blustery spring and autumn rain-whipped days, simply because I love riding in the (smog-filled) fresh air. I would still sacrifice that for the convenience and comfort of windless, rain and snow-less bicycle routes so long as there are sufficiently safe and efficient ground routes.

I'll tell you one thing: I want to be a part of this project, one way or another.

o-dog

that would be great ... too bad it wouldn't ever happen in this country

randya

A complimentary project:
https://www.bikestation.org/

cooker

I've thought about this concept for years - after all, motor vehicles have their own protected freeways like the Gardiner and the DVP. I've also wondered if there should be a separate bike lane in the subway tunnel. One time I went along Bloor looking to see if the area above the subway tunnel would work as a course for an elevated bikeway, but there are too many interruptions.

The problem with trying to install this system in the city is that people would see the elevated tubes as an eyesore, even though they are blind to the effects of intense car traffic on their quality of life. As well there is a risk, just like with separate bike paths, that people would use bikeways as an excuse to kick bikes off the street.

I think it's more feasible to work towards a Danish model as in the City of Cyclists thread.

EnigManiac

I tend to think the City of Cyclists model is more realistic and feasible, but the idea of the covered tubes is compelling. I think you are right that people would see the tubes as unnecessary and obtrusive, but what if they could be installed not over an avenue like Bloor St., but perhaps secondary routes like College St., Dundas St., Front St, Bay St., Jarvis St., etc., with single routes out to the east, west and north? If there weren't many bike tubes and they were over streets that are not as either vital or trendy like Bloor, Yonge or Queen, people would be more willing to accept them. I think that could be feasible and if we have a city government that can sell it, that can be energized with the same passion that Copenhagen has, it could work---not without modification and revision, not without protest or complaint or challenge---but it could be done. Pointing out the easier flow of motor traffic (with fewer cars as more people take up cycling and no cyclists to contend with as well), less crowded subways, etc., citizens just might be convinced it's the way to go.