from Hacker News

Bike Lane Sweepers (2021)

by scottmcdot on 8/31/23, 8:31 AM with 78 comments

by walthamstow on 9/1/23, 11:06 AM
What a cute idea. A lot of the bike lanes in my part of east London are covered by trees, which is wonderful for shelter from the sun or light rain, but in the autumn they become full of leaves which get rained on and turn into sludge.
All over London we have these mechanised sweepers of a similar type to the link below which are very narrow and can fit down most two-way cycle lanes, some one-way ones and also down narrow paths in parks.
https://www.aebi-schmidt.com/en/products/schmidt/sweepers/mf...
by drivers99 on 9/1/23, 3:23 PM
Denver uses mini street sweepers for the protected bike lanes, which are just small versions of the same type normally used for the street:
Picture at the bottom of the page. https://www.bortekpwx.com/bike-path-lane-cleaning-sweeping/
Product page (I notice some of the pictures are in Denver) https://www.bortekpwx.com/product/dulevo-dzero%c2%b2-electri...
by matsemann on 9/1/23, 10:40 AM
That whole webpage ( https://www.worldsweeper.com/ ) is so oldschool web. Love it.
by francisofascii on 9/1/23, 1:24 PM
Disappointed this wasn't a story about vigilante tow trucks, sweeping parked vehicles from the bike lanes. :)
by loeg on 9/1/23, 3:35 PM
This article may be (2021) but if you click through to https://bikelanesweeper.com/ , there is a September 2023 update: https://bikeportland.org/2023/08/24/portland-will-be-testing...
by hedora on 9/1/23, 2:00 PM
This is a great idea, but I’m not convinced it would work in the SF bay area. There’s a statewide mandate to reduce commute miles (note that the metric is not commute time, or commute pollution), and most cities have implemented this by introducing punitive light timings and removing car lanes.
To make the latter politically acceptable, they usually add “bike lanes”, which have complicated concrete barriers lining them, and are painted with solid green paint that is slick when covered in wet leaves.
Ignoring the obvious problems (the barriers would, at best, bend a rim if you swerved into them), they don’t aren’t designed to be possible to sweep, so they’re frequently too dirty to ride in, and many areas have stopped reliably trimming encroaching tree branches.
(Sometimes, they convert car lanes to “bus lanes”, which are just normal lanes, but bus services are incredibly infrequent, so the lanes sit idle 99% of the time. Ironically, those lanes seem well maintained.).
The upshot is that now bikes get to share one fewer lane with cars than before, for a given number of commuters, drive times are much higher, fuel economy is much lower, and (based on breathing the non-cabin-filtered air when riding my bike) air pollution on city streets is much higher.
Of course, covid helped them meet their metrics, so there’s also a looming property tax and commercial real estate crisis.
by Faaak on 9/1/23, 10:13 AM
I really thought about doing the same. On top of bicycling, I own a renault twizy which is a really small electric car. I wanted to attach a sweeper on it because the bicycle lanes around me are always full of debris. I found out that it's quite complicated to buy the "commercial" brushes for the sweeper, and thought instead of using a small pressure washer to sweep away the debris into the border.
Anyway, never had the time, but hopefully this winter I'll try to do something
by bunabhucan on 9/1/23, 2:15 PM
Oh man, Boulder CO has bike path snow ploughs.
https://www.dailycamera.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Heavy...
After a big storm with feet of snow the neighborhood roads can become impassable to regular cars while the bike paths are bone dry.
by schaefer on 9/1/23, 12:05 PM
As a recreational rider, I would love to have this for personal use on the home trail. What a fun was to make a positive impact on a public space.
Instead of tragedy of the commons, how about a little stewardship of the commons.
by ochoseis on 9/1/23, 11:35 AM
It would be awesome if they could put the sweeper in front of the bike somehow. Imagine getting a flat from the broken glass you’re about to sweep up.
by samuell on 9/1/23, 1:15 PM
Great idea! Even though we have pretty great cleaning of the bike lanes here in Stockholm, it often happens that sometimes pretty large rocks and gravel find their way out into the bikelane, from some road construction, just the side of the road and what not.
If you're cautious you can just avoid those, but for elder bikers who can't do quick maneuvers or are cycling at night, especially if gravel and bigger rocks are found in curves, my feeling is that it can be potentially quite hazardous.
Seems I'm one of very few (if any) who are constantly stopping to kick away such stones and debris, but it would really be better with a systematic way to keep lanes clean.
by meristohm on 9/1/23, 2:59 PM
I'm so happy to see this! I daydreamed and sketched plans for such a device about fifteen years ago (angled, staggered static brushes to push broken glass to the curb, mounted just fore of the rear wheel in one case, but I considered a collector, too), and if I ever live in a city with bike lanes again I'll gladly pull something like this around now and then.
by dvh on 9/1/23, 12:13 PM
If I remember Cody's lab video correctly, road sweep is decent platinum ore (6.7g per ton)
by throw7 on 9/1/23, 2:51 PM
Neat. I wonder if you could drop the battery and run off a dynamo hub or two?
by agumonkey on 9/1/23, 11:48 AM
I often wanted to try this, even for non bike lanes, especially on hills where gravity would do the job.. the sweeper could even serve as additional brakes from friction.
There should be an online board for biking initiatives :)
by zwieback on 9/1/23, 3:10 PM
This is great, like many others I've dreamed of a device like this.
What I really want is a sweeper ahead of my front wheel, though.
by robbywashere_ on 9/1/23, 11:26 AM
Bike lanes create jobs!
by hahamrfunnyguy on 9/1/23, 11:18 AM
As a cyclist that uses my bikes for recreation and transportation, keeping cars out of the bike lanes is really my top concern. This is really cool, but it's honestly a pristine bike lane is a very low priority compared to getting protected bike lanes. I've never really seen debris in the road/bike lane as being a problem, at least around here.
by anArbitraryOne on 9/1/23, 10:20 AM
Why would anyone actually want to solve a problem?