Kolelinia

February 5, 2010
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Way back in March of 2006, we featured a far out transportation scheme for Toronto dubbed Velocity. This project proposed the creation of elevated bicycle lanes enclosed in tubes, which provides year-round protection from the elements. Thus far we’ve yet to see anything like Velocity take shape in Toronto, or any other city for that matter, however we have become aware of a new variation on the original concept. Created by Bulgarian architect Martin Angelov, Kolelinia is an elevated bikeway supported by a series of tracks and wires.  The steel track uses a guy wire to attach your bicycle at the handlebar level.
Angelov provided the full background on the origin of Kolelinia is as follows:

Everything started in the summer of 2008.  I decided to participate in the international architectural competition Line of Site on the City Transportation Interchange brief. The first crazy idea which came to my mind was to make flying bicycle-lanes, using steel wire, something like ski lift but working on the opposite principle in which the wire is static and it doesn’t need electricity. Ultimately I sent only a pencil sketch and the idea placed for the final, which was held on February 2009 in London. My detailed presentation won the City Transportation Interchange brief. During the autumn of the same year I decided to develop the idea in further details. At the same time I received an invitation to become presenter for the Sofia’s TEDx conference, something that additionally stimulated the development of the idea. Many of the principles have been changed. For example the personal safety device, which is a prior-art itself. This site presents the third step of the development. Time only will show what will come out of it…

While only images from that TEDx conference have been made public, we’re anxious to hear Angelov’s presentation.  Will his vision of an elevated bikeway ever materialize?