Urban Velo

The following was submitted by Rangga Panji of Jakarta, Indonesia. It was intended to be an I Love Riding in the City contribution, but since he was already published in issue 13, we’re running his words here.

It’s been six years since I started riding my bicycle as main form of transportation in Jakarta, and I couldn’t find any exact reason of why do I still doing it. Long story short, Jakarta is a city that was planned without any regards to human beings, this city is designed mainly for motorized traffic. Spice it up a bit with reckless drivers and motorcyclists (and the fact that they seems to multiply in numbers every single day), and you’ll have chaos waiting every morning. And evening for that matter.

Oh, did I mentioned that bicycling helps me keep myself in shape, too? My wife surely agree with this.

Check out pancalencycles.blogspot.com.

Did you see this installation and semi-practical (not really) piece of bike art technology? Created by Vladimir Turner of Sgnlr, this handlebar add-on gives you the perceived safety of a bike lane virtually anywhere! Roads, sidewalks, stairs, bodies of water…the world is yours to ride! We’ve come a long way from guerilla chalking and spray painting bike lanes to the pavement haven’t we?

That blog title is confusing I know, but it’ll all make sense in just a second. This story has been making the rounds since IKEA began advertising their intentions last year, but with movement on the IKEA town gaining momentum it’s making for more internet fodder. To summarize, IKEA is building a village with a Swedish mentality. They are constructing a village South of the Olympic stadium in London that consists of 1,200 homes, 480,000 feet of commercial space and following the principles of “new urbanism”, which tend to push vehicular traffic to the bottom of the transportation pyramid.

There has been much skepticism and expected backlash to a corporation designing a city, mainly centering around concerns of flimsily constructed abodes furnished like, well, an IKEA catalog. All that doesn’t concern me so much as I bet the livability and quality of life generated by a pedestrian and bicycle friendly town would far outweigh any of those other petty concerns.

So how does IKEA plan on making non-vehicular traffic the priority, namely bike transportation? As this article on Co.exist states,

Strand East will also be free of vehicle traffic–upon entering the development, drivers will head straight to an underground garage. Vehicles will be allowed inside, of course (especially buses, delivery vans, and emergency vehicles), but their presence will be minimized. “This goes back to the Ikea philosophy of doing something for the people,” says Muller.

This effort is coupled with pedestrian walkways and cycle routes around the 2,000,000 square foot property area. So yeah, even if minimalist beds formed from compacted cardboard isn’t your thing, surely you can get behind the bike-centric amenities once construction starts in 2013. Now, if we can only convince IKEA to give out free bikes to all home buyers in IKEAburgapolois…or whatever they plan on naming it.