Imagine riding through Picadily Circus and all you hear and see are people talking and birds in the sky. This was the guiding vision of this year’s winners at the Future City Mobility competition for designers to envision how London’s transportation could look in 2030.
Marten Wallgren, a Swede studying at the Royal College of Art and with three collegues, won the SeymourPowell award for their concept dubbed, “London Garden”. The scheme incorporates a network of electric buses, taxis, and scooter-bikes, all of which interconnect to make London Garden a car-free zone.
The concept of London Garden includes special bicycles that operate in three modes. The first mode is the cruising option with the possible addition of regenerative braking. The second mode is a rigorous bicycling, where additional resistance is supplied to generate and store electricity. The third mode cashes in on stored power and turns the bike into an electric scooter. These bicycles are foldable, and are stored for community use in tall, treelike structures that double as bus stops. The bike racks themselves are meant to generate power from rainwater, sun, and even kinetically from the wind as its swooping arms sway.
The bicycles also work as modular components within the urban environment where they can be folded and carried on-board electric buses and taxis. Once docked inside, they double as seats and the stored energy that was generated during pedaling is now transferred into the vehicle and even credited as currency towards your fare.
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