Showing posts with label enclosed bike lane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enclosed bike lane. Show all posts

30 April 2018

Is The Future In A Miniloop?

If you are a cycle-commuter, someone is sure to ask, "What do you do when it rains?"

In most places, you have the following choices:

1. Use fenders and raingear (or carry a change of clothes).
2. Get wet.
3. Use other means of transportation.

I'll admit to having used 3.) when it's raining, cold and windy--or during a hard, driving rain when I could hardly see in front of me. I also have used alternative means of transportation--which, for me, here in New York, means the subway--when there was more than a dusting of snow.

Some day the weather excuse won't wash--at least, if architect Richard Moreta has any influence over urban planners.




He has just unveiled his "MINILOOP", an enclosed elevated bikeway designed to snake alongside streets or highways, or cut their own paths through cities.  




Moreta says he has designed MINILOOP to be easily replicated in, and adapted to, different locales:  It can be made open-air for warmer climates and fully enclosed in less hospitable environs.  Most important, though, he believes his design will not only help to reduce the number of motor vehicles used for transportation; they will afford more vertical space for trees and plants to grow and help filter the air.