Tokyo-style

There are so many ways that this thing could go wrong, but I'm sure that the Japanese inventors have it all worked out. And with secure storage for 9400 bikes and a retrieval time of 23 seconds, you can't really knock it. [Thanks Tom, and via spacing.ca and TreeHugger]

Melbourne-style

As the state of my health demands that I temporarily return to the loving embrace of ~~the Dementors~~ Connex, I am also temporarily exposed to the journalistic joys of the MX "newspaper".

But for once I saw something of interest (to me, at least):

World-first bike park-and-shower pods will be in Bourke St within months, with Flinders St station to follow…The council-funded pods provide a shower and change room in buildings where there are no facilities for cyclists.

It looks like they have a bit of a scoop here—can't find it on any online news source, and although Bicycle Victoria mentioned it a year ago, they didn't name specific locations, tipped by MX to include the NAB building, Fed Square, City Square, and Docklands Stadium.

New York-style

A competition has been opened to [design the new bike racks for New York y][], intended to

develop functional, well-designed sidewalk racks and to generate new concepts for bicycle parking inside commercial and residential buildings.

'Twill be interesting to see what comes of that.

Comments

Her

The City of Melbourne thing is quite interesting, considering how a similar, larger concept was scuttled a few years ago by a certain organisation telling CoM how to spend their money.

Or how having wimen and men getting changed in close proximity was a potentially A Bad Thing. (shit, haven't these people been to the changing rooms at the local pool?)

Although if these pods are just glorified Exeloos, we all could do without the accompanying 'The Wind Beneath My Pants' soundtrack when disrobing from the lycra & gortex.

Treadly and Me

Yes, that was mentioned in the MX article:

The pods supersede a bicycle superstations scheme, dumped when cyclists said they were unwilling to walk more than two blocks for a shower.

I vaguely remember that survey, and thought at the time that it was flawed because it only surveyed cyclists who already commute into the city—those who presumably have satisfactory end of journey arrangements. How you get responses from the potential commuting cyclists whose only obstacle is the lack of shower and/or secure parking is a puzzle, but surely there must be market research techniques to address this sort of problem.