Bicycle Escalators? Dream Big, Tacoma! (27. October 2006, 10:05 by Derek Young) ~ Building A Better City
Have you ever ridden your bicycle up the hill in downtown Tacoma? Yeah, it’s a blast. Can we make it easier for bicyclists? Sure. There must be a way. Today, we found it. The Norwegian company, Trampe, builds the Bicycle Lift, a device that allows you to put one foot on a some sort of metal plate while you stay on the bike. The contraption then starts to move up the hill and you go along for the ride. It reminds me of j-hook ski lifts that resorts use to get you up short hills. It’s installed in one city so far, but appears to be ready to go worldwide… There’s a photo gallery of happy users. It only looks slightly precarious. (via Bike Portland)
Link to Bicycle Lift Product Page
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They should make these for cars! Just stick your foot out the driver’s side door and save some fossil fuel by not revving up a hill. Heck, maybe it could be powered from diesel created by that guy’s garbage to gas plant that’s coming soon!
1 | Posted by KevinFreitas | Oct 27, 10:26 AM
This is a great idea…for wusses. Yet there are days when this would be great…
2 | Posted by jamie from thriceallamerican | Oct 27, 10:41 AM
The nice thing about cycling in downtown Tacoma is being stopped for directions to the jail. Rather than spending the money on a bicycle lift, spend it on good signage to the jail. That way you don’t have to stop mid-block on the way up hill.
3 | Posted by Rollie | Oct 27, 11:50 AM
The nice thing about cycling in downtown Tacoma is being stopped for directions to the jail.
Haha! Funny cause it’s true!
The other bonus is that when you’re going uphill, the lights are quite nicely timed for cars to drive past you at approximately 137 MPH and you end up having to stop at every poorly-timed red light. I’ll admit its hard time time lights for bicyclists since we all go at different speeds, but it wouldn’t hurt to slow down the cars a little bit here and there…
4 | Posted by jamie from thriceallamerican | Oct 27, 12:26 PM
Ha! I take care of Downtown Tacoma hills with my electric-assisted bicycle. The assist makes those hills seem like they’re flat ground. The bike goes pretty fast too. You can find more about them at http://www.electricvehiclesnw.com/
A competing vision of transportation in the last century was a world of bikes supplemented by rail transit. It’s working in Portland and in Europe. Hope something comes of this loose talk.
5 | Posted by Chris from Theater District | Oct 27, 06:39 PM
“This is a great idea…for wusses.”
Fine jamie, once Tacoma’s test installation goes in on N Carr St, I’ll be sitting here on my porch waiting for you to pedal on by unassisted. :P
6 | Posted by Sesos | Oct 27, 08:04 PM
I lost so many of my “less hills alternative routes” when the bridges over I-5 were taken out. Because I live in “upper-Tacoma”, my outgoing routes are usually downhill, so when I’m tired its uphill. I would love to see something useful like this considered, the only problem being the lame-o’s who would wipe out and sue the city because of scraped knees.
8 | Posted by Christine | Oct 28, 08:28 AM
Awesome for skateboarding! Skaters have very little “uphill options” except to hoof it (or grunt through two pushes up, on roll back).
This contraption strikes me as a very european device. In the gallery you can see a woman using the device to help her and her stroller up an incline. The stroller is trucking along in the parking strip. I can imagine thousands of American city attornies laying awake at night in a cold sweat with pictures of baby-strollers “sharing the road.”
9 | Posted by Peter Whitley | Oct 28, 08:39 AM
Fine jamie, once Tacoma’s test installation goes in on N Carr St, I’ll be sitting here on my porch waiting for you to pedal on by unassisted
Jamie – you have a new bike. Are you up for a challenge? I’d do it… Although I hate riding up that pseudo cobblestone.
Hmmm…this is getting interesting… But if I must defend my honor, let it be so.
Realistically, though, I think that the hills in downtown probably do scare a lot of people away from biking to jobs or school down there. The rest of the city is OK for biking, but if my uphill ride home wasn’t less than 2 miles long I could see a bit of trepidation creeping in. A hill climbing device could be cool for getting more people out of their cars. Or people could just follow Chris’s model, and get bikes with hill climbing devices built in…
I would love to see more bike traffic downtown. Nothing like someone ahead of you on a hill to give you that extra motivation. (Hopefully I don’t find out that it’s Chris pedaling away like it’s flat ground, though…)
10 | Posted by jamie from thriceallamerican | Oct 28, 09:06 AM
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