Norway is a leader: In Trondheim, a city on the Trondheim Fjord in central Norway, the “Sykkelheisen Trampe” has been operating since 1992 – a 130-meter long bicycle lift that comfortably pushes cyclists uphill without sweating.
And what the Norwegians can do, Lucerne Young Greens want, writes Luzerner Zeitung. They want to follow the example of the first – and only – Velolift. In a motion in the Lucerne city parliament of June 20, they therefore asked the city council to build such an elevator on the ‘steep lower part of the Sagenmattstrasse’.
“With impetus to Littau”
The siblings Irina (29) and Jona Studhalter (27) are postulants. In their initiative “Velolift Sagenmattstrasse – with impetus to Littau”, both point out that the city council as part of the counter-proposal to the initiative “Lucerne cycle network now!” said Sagenmattstrasse as the main 2033 cycle route towards Littau.
The “unsatisfactory” situation for cyclists. You have the choice between “a slightly steeper but narrower Bernstrasse” or the new main cycle route Sagenmattstrasse, “whose slope is unreasonable for all non-motorized cyclists”.
Young politicians thought that a bicycle lift would solve this problem. They refer to the example from Trondheim, Norway, where cyclists comfortably climb uphill with a tow rope to which a footplate is attached.
The city of Lucerne as the Swiss pioneer of Velolift
Jona Studhalter believes that such a bicycle lift can be implemented in the city of Lucerne and that it can also be “fully approved by the city’s parliament,” said the young green Luzerner Zeitung.
She and her sister also ask the city council to “share the Velolift experiences with other communities after the project has been implemented and, if the results are successful, to investigate other Velolift elsewhere in the city of Lucerne”.
“The floor is lava”
The bicycle lift proposal is one of the two initiatives thanks to which the Young Greens want to make the use of two-wheelers in Lucerne more comfortable and safer.
In the second Youth Greens initiative, “The ground is lava – handrails for cyclists from Lucerne”, handrails, handrails or bicycle handrails are required in city traffic. This is to make it easier for cyclists to get on the road, especially at traffic lights.
Such handrails already exist elsewhere. For example in Basel-Landschaft or the Danish capital of Copenhagen. According to the “SRF” report, the installation of two bicycle posts in Muttenz and Münchenstein in 2017 cost around 12,000 francs. (lm)
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