The integration of a system of infrastructures of bikes in a city is no longer an option recommended, it is a necessity, not to say "obligation" that modern cities must acquire structures capable of detaching their inhabitants from the motor vehicles for the benefit of transportation systems more friendly to the environment and in balance with more coherent urbanism and architecture and beneficial for its inhabitants.
We are not talking about anything new, and examples of implanting a “soft mobility” system in a city around the world there are many, but in this case we want present a project that has received different awards and that exudes quality made by a Spanish architect, Luis Gallego Pachón, named Madrid CycleSpace – Madrid Cycling Space (Strategic Plan of Soft Mobility – The metropolitan network of Ciclopista Non-Stop), with the aim of integrating throughout the city of Madrid a network and infrastructure of bikes with a number of peculiarities and tangible benefits for those who live and transit by Madrid.
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«We are moving towards a change in the way we view our cities and road environments. They can no longer be considered simply as brokers of transportation for the motor, but as public spaces, latent, habitable, permeable and soft, where the pedestrian and cyclist will be the protagonists. «
As a preview, we leave the project presentation video to get a global idea of the Madrid concept Cyclespace.
Madrid Cyclespace configured by both a new paradigm of soft mobility: the network of non-stop bike paths.
Comparable to the advent of highways in 1930 and their deformation and transformation of the typological and urban landscape; the development of the bicycle path network will have the potential to have a far-reaching effect on spatial planning and the city.
Madrid Cycle-Space proposes the generation of a new dimension of mobility… “the space cyclable».
It will be 100% permeable, connecting the new layer with the through accesses of a fixed and temporary nature with different dimensions, responding to influxes, and radii of influence in the urban fabric, being able to assume any future connection or new splice.
It will integrate a storage system and services, organized by scales, adapting to the cycle paths and the different situations and urban plots.
Madrid Cycle-Space will not only save the bars physical and artificial, but rather it will make flexible and permeable displacements; will reduce times and bring distances; will generate and recover public spaces taking advantage of the resolution of intersections and nodes obsolete; it will be self-sufficient; will decrease the energy electric vehicles, increasing their autonomy and reducing its energy cost; will absorb elements from the sidewalk, cleaning the pedestrian space, and contributing to improve the set of soft mobility; and will take advantage of its extension properties and arterial influence, serving as a latent metropolitan support of facilities, becoming itself a network of sourcing and courier.
The cycling space must integrate and solve all the infrastructures, supports, services, conditions and dimensions necessary for the plan of soft mobility; responding to the metropolitan scale, urban, and road.
A new concept of cyclable road space is defined and soft:
Highway
(Car and track)
1.f. Highway with separate carriageways for both directions traffic, each with two or more lanes, No grade crossings.
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Bike path
(Cycle and track)
"1.f. Soft track with separate tracks for both directions traffic, each with two or more lanes, without level crossings, equipped, non-stop.»
0. The potential cyclable space
The cycling space must respond to the conditions direct from the city It will be represented in a composite atlas by a footprint of flows, an archipelago of nodes, a mesh earrings and some It will form an open tool, without end, which will need to be adapted and modified over time, assuming the changes of urban mobility.
1. Utopian Grid Balance / pragmatic
Taking into account the cyclable space to promote, the network cyclable will balance between the most optimal routes, the relation distance/time, intermodality, connectivity and the connection between the largest number of potential origins and destinations. There will be a primary network of cycle paths, which can assume future transformations and modifications through a network secondary, latent, adaptation pathways.
2. Dynamic bike lanes
They will be composed of geometric characteristics that are adapt to the different functions and influx of each line of the network, reasons for travel and potential users of the urban and metropolitan axes studied.
3. Orographic patching
The slopes of the cycle paths will always be the same or less than 2%. Configuring a new autonomous road stratum, that by means of an orographic patching of Elevated and coexistence bike paths save the barriers physical and artificial city.
4. Road adaptation
The network of bike paths will be adapted to the width of the streets existing, the ranges of predominant heights, separation between buildings, pavement uses, signage and potential supports on the road. It will also respect the privacy in high elevation situations via different types of enclosure.
5. Conflicts with other users
It will avoid and solve road conflicts between the different road users and their corresponding spaces, always benefiting soft mobility.
6. Dimensions and road situations: Neu Neufert
The cycle paths will be dimensioned with a new reference, attending not only to the dynamic situations in circulation but also at intersection, parallel movement, stop, diversion, access, accident, rest and coexistence with others soft users. Therefore, it will have stopping shoulders, interstitial margins, security, deviations, additions, mechanical and electrical service areas, areas rest, parkig etc…
7. Non-stop tracks
It must have the quality of continuity, they will be non-stop tracks, without obstacles, separating soft mobility users and motorized, avoiding accidents, reducing times and closing distances.
8. Permeability: Accesses and Magnets
It will be 100% permeable, complemented by fixed accesses or temporary with different dimensions, influxes, and radii of influence on the urban fabric. The network must be able to assume any future connection or new splice.
9. Intersections and generation of spaces public
It will solve and save the conflicting nodes, through protected at-grade intersections, plazas, roundabouts, and junctions elevated, generating and recovering public spaces absorbed by the asphalt and the motor.
10. Storage and services
It must offer a catalog of storage and services, organized by scales, adapting to the cycle paths and the different situations and urban plots. Rethinking in turn those urban elements that need to adapt to the widespread use of the bicycle.
11. Cost, Construction and Maintenance
It will be composed of a constructive and structural phylogeny from the minimum elements and materials, reducing costs, adapting to different possible situations, and also facilitating minimal maintenance.
12. Urban integration and signaling
It must be well signposted in itself and towards the environment urban. The supports in elevated situations will adapt always at your situation level. Protecting in case of support in road, and offering services and furniture to users soft and the pedestrian medium in a situation of support on the sidewalk.
13. Weather Protection
It will be suitably protected against the conditions weather conditions that prevent good circulation, through multipurpose enclosures that adapt to the different urban environments.
14. Facilities: Infrastructure self-sufficient
It will be self-sufficient. It will generate its own energy taking advantage of the kinetic energy from rolling, solar energy and water from rain, supplying its lighting systems, sound, wireless, air and water.
15. Metropolitan support of Facilities
It will take advantage of its extension properties and arterial influence, serving as a latent metropolitan support for facilities, becoming itself a supply network.
16. Cleaning of pedestrian space
Taking advantage of the different situations of support and structure, whenever possible, it will absorb road and urban elements of the sidewalk, cleaning the pedestrian space, and contributing to improve joint soft mobility.
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Main text and completed project by Luis Gallego Pachón, more images and information from his profile HERE. and in the Afasiaarchzine portal… HERE.
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Links of interest to the portal:
