North Vancouver mayor travels to Norway to test bike lift
Darrell Mussatto wants to bring something similar to his city to boost bike ridership
Would you be more likely to ride your bike in the city if you didn't have to ride it uphill?
North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto thinks so, and he travelled to Norway on his own dime to test out a unique and potential solution there: a bike escalator.
The world's first bike lift, the CycloCable, has been successfully shuttling cyclists up a 250-metre-long hill in Trondheim, Norway since 1993.
"You sit on your bicycle, you put one foot on a pedal, you push a button and the little pedal on the ground pushes you up the hill," Mussatto explained.
Mussatto first saw the device on YouTube five years ago. He brought the idea to city council, where it was generally met with positive feedback, he said.
"No one had actually seen it in operation. No one had actually used it, so I said I had to do it," he said.
"I decided to make the trip out here and check it out, and check out the rest of the cycling infrastructure as well."
While in Norway, Mussatto will meet with local Trondheim officials as well as CycloCable inventor Jarle Wanvik to find out how the mechanics work and how the system integrates into local bike infrastructure.
Potential location on Keith Road
A preliminary study by the city in 2010 found that Lonsdale Avenue would not be a suitable location for this kind of bike lift, in particular because of the area's heavy traffic and busy intersections.
Mussatto suggested the Keith Road hill between Bewicke Avenue and Jones Street as a potential location, but said that staff would first need to conduct a feasibility study to determine if the project would be suitable.
The system in Norway cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and was funded through road tolls for automobile users, Mussatto said. and a similar system in North Vancouver could cost the city a million dollars.
"It's free here [in Norway], and I'd hope if we had one it would be free as well so people could take a couple of tries at it before they get it," said Mussatto, who believes only 60 per cent of the bike lift's users ride it successfully on their first attempt.
Mussatto said the steep hills in North Vancouver are one of the major impediments to increased bike ridership in the city.
"Something like this would be quite unique in North America, and I think something like this might encourage people to become cyclists," he said.
To hear the full interview with Mayor Darrell Mussatto, listen to the audio labelled: North Van mayor in Norway to try bike lift.