One of the tenacious grumbles about biking in Auckland is that it’s too hilly. (The other is that it’s too rainy – but that was mythbusted some time ago. Turns out if you bike to work every workday for a year, odds are you’d get wet on 12 of them. Pack a parka, people!). And Wellington and Dunedin could certainly chime in with the same complaint.
Lisbon faces the same issue, in that the city is literally built around seven hills. In fact, that’s its nickname: A Cidade das Sete Colinas (The City of the Seven Hills).
But Lisboa Horizontal, a new proposal by Brussels & Lisbon-based landscape architecture firm BXLX, offers an ingenious way to flatten Lisbon’s hills for most riders, across most of the city, at minimal expense.
What’s “flat”? Well, an acceptable gradient for ordinary people on bikes is anything up to 4%. How many streets meet that criterion? Turns out, about 63% of Lisbon’s streets are bikeable by anyone. A further quarter can be managed by bike-fit enthusiasts, which leaves only 12% best tackled by the truly brave. Or, ahem, the electrified.
The next step is to map those easy streets, and here’s the lovely thing: to colour-code them by area, taking inspiration from the existing metro lines. That means red, gold, and blue, as well as the familiar Kermit green. (Perhaps the good people of Franklin Rd could pick a fresh colour for their upcoming bike path?)
Even better, for those of us who follow our noses and sometimes get lost: the writing is, not on the wall, but on the street in front of you, because wayfinding is included on the paths themselves. (A strong lesson for AT, currently working through feedback on Stage 1 of the wayfinding project for Dominion Rd back streets: built-in signage that lets people travel uninterrupted!).
Another thing to love about this proposal: the way car-parking on arterial roads is deployed to protect the new space for cyclists. Textbook stuff.
If Lisboa Horizontal is implemented, 65% of the city becomes accessible to pretty much anyone on a bike. Add in some nifty tricks for the hills (Trondheim-style bike lifts, or simply racks on trams and buses), and suddenly 85% of the city is yours for the biking. See how it works in the video below.
Horizontal Auckland, anyone?
