Bicycles – Innovations
ambience: bicycle pass and coast
Bicycles are evolving, not just in their design, but in the way that they fit into the cityscape. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
Buehler: One big innovation that we see coming are the electric bikes or pedal-assist bikes.
Ralph Buehler is an Associate Professor in Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech.
Buehler: These are a little bit like electric scooters. So just by turning your handlebar, you can accelerate your bicycle. Pedal-assist bikes provide you with electric-assist only if you pedal. The question there is how do we deal with these bikes in term of speed? How do they interact with existing bicyclists?
There are many more e-bikes already in Europe. There are a lot of e-bikes in Asia mainly, in China. So, they are a big part of bicycles there. It’s sort of a step between the bicycle and the motor scooter. E-bikes are not powered by gasoline. They are powered by battery which you have to charge at some point, but it’s electricity that is used to power these bikes.
Some of the pedaling can keep them charged, but most of them have to be at some point, have to be plugged into a wall plug.
Taking another cue from overseas, bicycles could change the dynamics of urban traffic in the United States.
Buehler: What you can then do once you have sort of a critical mass of cyclists, is start timing traffic lights for bicycles. At the moment, we are timing traffic lights for cars so they can move quite speedy at a speed, let’s say, of 30 miles per hour through a town, but what they do in Amsterdam or in Copenhagen, they are timing consecutive traffic lights for bicyclists. So, if you cycle at 10 miles per hour, you will always hit a green light at the next intersection, sort of giving you a smooth ride as a cyclist.
Have any ideas what the bicycle of the future would be like? Tell us on Facebook? I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.