Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Bicycles and sun

Increased use of bicycles in the cities would be valuable to save energy, to save life, to reduce congestion and thereby increase speed, to reduce noise and not the least to make people more fit. There are several reasons for why people don't take the bike. A few don't even know how to do it, but mostly it has to do with comfort and convinience and a bit of safety. Separate bike paths or streets dedicated to cyclists are two good things. In cold and rainy climates rain or snow are real hurdles. A roof over the bike path could increase the interest a lot. That might not work well in the city centres for both practical and estetical reasons, but in the outskirts and suburbs a roof on top would be great. And it would be even better to put up photovoltaic cells on top of them, perhaps even integrated in the roofs. In this way we would both promote increased use of bicycles and more solar energy, and use "dead" surfaces for energy production. Obviously pedestrians should also have access to these. Construction companies could perhaps make covered bike path modules that they could easily "roll out". A lot better use of society's money than support to destructive technologies such as the car industry.

1 comment:

  1. This is a great idea indeed! Good for the earth and the people. I think planting rain trees along both sides of the bicycle path will help to prevent the rain drops and to safe the environment.

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