A little more than six years back, celebrated YouTuber Casey Neistat’s ‘bike lane’ video showing the dangers of riding a bicycle in a big city went viral getting him huge mainstream media attention across the United States. Anyone who rides a bike through the busy streets would know how difficult and dangerous it can be to deal with hazards like jaywalking pedestrians, abruptly opening car doors and angry motorists trying to screw with you for no reason. While some cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam are very bicycle friendly and have dedicated infrastructure and regulations to encourage bicyclists, many don’t have space or enough funding to ensure safety for people on bikes. BMW has come up with a concept which might transform these busy metropolises with old layouts into bicycle-friendly cities without eating into the space for motorways.
The German automobile giant has proposed a network of elevated bike paths inside hyperloop like tubes dedicated for people on ebikes and other electric mobility machines. BMW calls its concept Vision E3 Way, which stands for elevated, electric, and efficient. These bicycle superhighways would be fully enclosed to protect cyclists from rain and other harsh weather condition. In addition to that, it will also be climate-controlled to ensure a comfortable environment throughout the year. The elevated cycle paths will feature a solar-paneled roof that would generate power for the network’s night lighting and climate control system. The concept has been designed by BMW’s technology unit in Shanghai in collaboration with Tongji University in China.
[Via:Inhabitat]
