Raise the Hammer

Shared space as a concept seems unattainable in cities where ideology drives urban discourse.

So, while the City of Hamilton catches up with dedicated & continuous bike lane infrastructure, there is bound to be on-going friction between automobile drivers and bike riders.

I had earlier mentioned:

"what if we were to look at our roads and streets as an User Interface issue...With this approach, we may end opening ourselves to collaborative innovations in city planning - while having some serious fun creating entirely new solutions to problems we may never have anticipated by otherwise narrow-casting issues."

Now, what if someone in Hamilton were to invent a "Mobile Bike Lane"?

What if this little add-on widget had the Made-in-Hamilton stamp on it - much like our 'little local whistle'. And what if this new Hamilton invention went on to revolutionize the urban bike riding experience across the world?

So what is a Mobile Bike Lane?

It is a simple solar powered clip on LED light (with battery backup), which is affixed to the handle bar and rear of the seat, which (like the auto headlamps) comes on with the first turn of the wheel. What it does, is casts a 'green band of light' on the road, on both sides of the bike, to create an instant -safe zone- an instant bike lane; with an additional feature which turns on the front and rear green band of light to form a safe box. This light would be designed for daylight use.

With this little widget, even if cities are unable to create bike lanes on account of budget or ideology, the bike riders are always safe with their instant mobile bike lane. And automobile drivers are given the visible cue to not violate this safe bike-zone.

This would protect bike riders in all sorts of conditions on side roads, parking lots, driveways, country roads etc.

And with a little bit of sensor engineering, when two or more bikes are in an overlapping zone, the green band of light could be made to synchronize into forming a contiguous green-line and so on... with even an optional audible-alarm alert, if there is a breach of this zone by a passing automobile.

Well, if Hamilton is to become an Ambitious city once again, let us take a leap of faith with such thinking, and attempt to solve our shared public space problems in more unique ways. Something like this would not only bring huge revenues to the city by virtue of manufacturing this here for local & export markets, but it would create local jobs in the process of solving a local problem that appears unsolvable.

Mahesh P. Butani

Comment edited by Mahesh_P_Butani on 2012-05-23 01:42:45