The History of Bike Lanes and their Potential in Kamloops

Task: write as much as you can about a topic (architecture or engineering technology/approach, or site) you're interested in, WITHOUT doing any research beforehand. Obviously, don't make up any facts that aren't verified. Address any general history you know about the topic and its use. 

If the topic is focused on a technology/building approach (ie. strawbale construction, green roofs, biophilic design), write everything you know about why it exists and its strengths. Is the application in a residential, commercial, or industrial context? How does it perform against competing options? (ie. different kinds of insulation, wall construction, etc) Keep in mind that 'performance' can be measured in many different ways: strength, cost, durability, sustainability, energy output, aesthetics, etc. Does it have any weaknesses or barriers?? If it has not gained widespread application, discuss why.

If you are starting with the site (ie. Old Main building, Old Courthouse, Red Bridge), write down everything you know about the site's function and drawbacks. Does/did it perform it's function well? Do people enjoy using it? 

In the example below, I have written as much as I can on a subject without doing initial research. In the first paragraph, I am starting with the problem that my technology (bike lanes) seeks to address without naming the technology itself right away. I think this helps in framing the context in which my problem is situated. I follow up by explaining what I already know about the history, usage, limitations, and context where I wish to situate it.

In subsequent posts, I will build on this by adding photos and properly referenced sources. 

The History of Bike Lanes and their Potential in Kamloops - Clement Yeh

As Canadian cities continue to grow in geographic size and population, a range of solutions are required to make the increased flow of traffic more efficient, user-friendly, and safe. Roads can be widened, HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes added, and new freeways can be constructed. Additions to public transit, including buses, trams, light-rail trains, and subways help to move citizens around their city while reducing dependence on privately-owned automobiles. These engineering projects are important but they are expensive, semi-permanent, and create significant disruption in their installation process. Additionally, they consume immense amounts of resources and take years to plan and execute. For those who don't own a vehicle but are looking for fast and direct transportation choices, the 'gig economy' has introduced on-demand privately owned ride services such as Uber and Lyft. A complimentary solution to manage the flow of traffic on a smaller scale is the implementation of bike lanes.

Why Do Bicycle Lanes Exist? 

In many cities, bicycles exist in an ambiguous grey space between pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The space taken up by a bicycle is closer to a human scale than an automobile. Many cyclists feel more comfortable riding on a sidewalk, where they can move at a slower speed than vehicles and therefore be significantly safer. Riding around cars presents an obvious threat; which is further increased with buses and semi-trucks. As bicycles are harder to spot and less predictable (most cyclists in Canada do not use hand signals, which are commonplace in countries such as the Netherlands), drivers are less accustomed to look for them and work around them. When on a road, a bicycle presents additional dangers to others, as a car that needs to pass around them without switching lanes can collide or obstruct other drivers. However, when riding on a sidewalk, the cyclist can be a hazard to pedestrian traffic. Therefore, it is standard for municipalities to classify a bicycle as a 'motor vehicle', and riding on the sidewalk is illegal.

Types of Bike Lanes 

Bicycle lanes come in a range of different forms, depending on location and urban density. Bike lanes can be paved paths through municipal and provincial parks (as opposed to non-paved bike trails), lanes that are combined with residential streets (designated only by painted lines and bike logos) and dedicated lanes separated by a concrete meridian. Deciding between the latter two options can be a matter of physical space, as the dedicated lanes are wider to incorporate dual-direction bicycle flow as well as the meridian. As a result, dedicated lanes present the safest option by keeping the two types of motor vehicles from interacting, except at intersections. The main drawbacks of the dedicated lanes are that they reduce the number of car lanes, and they inhibit the ability for cars to park on the side (right side, in North America). 

Kamloops

The city of Kamloops has an urban population of roughly 115,000. Public transportation is limited due to the fact that it is a smaller city and most residents own one or more vehicles. The geographic location in a valley with two adjoining rivers inhibits the ability to install light rail, trams, or subways.

In this research project, I will be assessing the current range of bicycle lanes in this city and making recommendation son its expansion.

Clement Yeh

Nuit Blanche

Here is what it looked like when it was installed for Nuit Blanche on Feb 27. I worked very hard for several weeks leading up to installing it, building a new gear system, viewing box, and a lighter plastic drum. Thanks to Maskull, Beatriz, Malcolm, and Ritchie for their generous help. In the end the engineering problems got the best of me. I spent the evening of Nuit Blanche explaining to a few hundred excited/disappointed people: "Désolé, c'est ne fonction pas... il y a un probleme mechanique..."

The good news is that people still were attracted to it, and wanted to be informed of its completion, and I made contacts with a couple guys who could offer technical advice.

Will be in touch. It will be running as soon as possible. Thanks for your interest. "If you build it, they will come."

November 2009

All Four Hooves Leave the Ground is a large scale interactive sculpture that reconstructs the mechanical elements of an analog film projector. The viewer pedals a stationary bicycle to operate a spinning film shutter and drum, on which is displayed an animated sequence of a galloping horse and rider.

At this point, I am actually updating the project's progress as it is happening, as opposed to retroactively: the blog is only a week old, and the project has been on and off for three years. Finishing my MFA in Sculpture at Concordia slowed it down. The primary function of this page is to promote future exhibitions of the sculpture and document its evolution of inspiration, fabrication, and problem solving.

It's looking really sweet, and I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Phew.

Please click on any image to see it in greater detail.

Many steps throughout the process have not been documented, such as fabricating the 'forked transmission' (the aluminum platform with the perpendicularly mounted gear systems). Another important step not shown was running long aluminum strips through an electric metal bender to make the drum, and bolting the plexi to it.



Five chains have been installed in total. Two of them link the pedals to the Geneva Stop at the rear, passing through a flip-flop hub, also known as a double-sided hub. This may be of interest to bicycle enthusiasts; the hub can accept a fixed gear on one side and a freewheel gear on the other. I am using it to give myself more versatility in being able to adjust gear ratios. The Geneva Stop feeds intermittent power to the forked transmission, which in turn spins the drum and the shutter. Derailleurs have been installed on each chain to regulate tension. Diagonal steel strips have been bolted to the front of the drum support structure to increase stability, which is very necessary in a machine that breaks down into dozens of seperate pieces for storing and shipping purposes. Once I can achieve a consistent tension from one end to another, everything should spin smoothly and I can work on how images mounted on the drum will sync up with holes in the shutter. The 'viewing box' I have installed is still preliminary, and will undergo many modifications. This will include making it light-tight, and vertically adjustable to accommodate riders of different heights.

Eadweard Muybridge and 'The Horse in Motion'

As stated earlier, this project is in part a homage to Eadweard Muybridge and his early photographic experiments which had a huge impact on the development of animation and cinema. Here is a bit of text sampled from his Wikipedia page that describes his work, including the famous Horse Experiment that this sculpture references:

"Eadweard J. Muybridge (April 9, 1830 – May 8, 1904) was an English photographer, known primarily for his important pioneering work, with use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the celluloid film strip that is still used today.

In 1872, former Governor of California Leland Stanford, a businessman and race-horse owner, had taken a position on a popularly-debated question of the day: whether all four of a horse's hooves left the ground at the same time during a gallop. Stanford sided with this assertion, called "unsupported transit", and took it upon himself to prove it scientifically. Stanford sought out Muybridge and hired him to settle the question. To prove Stanford's claim, Muybridge developed a scheme for instantaneous motion picture capture.

In 1877, Muybridge settled Stanford's question with a single photographic negative showing Stanford's racehorse Occident airborne in the midst of a gallop. This negative was lost, but it survives through woodcuts made at the time. By 1878, spurred on by Stanford to expand the experiment, Muybridge had successfully photographed a horse in fast motion using a series of twenty-four cameras. The first experience successfully took place on June 11, with the press present. Muybridge used a series of 12 stereoscopic cameras, 21 inches apart to cover the 20 feet taken by one horse stride, taking pictures at one thousandth of a second. The cameras were arranged parallel to the track, with trip-wires attached to each camera shutter triggered by the horse's hooves.

This series of photos, taken at what is now Stanford University or in Sacramento, California (there is some dispute as to the actual location), is called The Horse in Motion, and shows that the hooves do all leave the ground — although not with the legs fully extended forward and back, as contemporary illustrators tended to imagine, but rather at the moment when all the hooves are tucked under the horse as it switches from "pulling" from the front legs to "pushing" from the back legs."

March 2008

Here is a charcoal drawing, 8' x 10', I made as a side project to supplement the development of All Four Hooves Leave the Ground. The marks attempt to describe the kinetic action of the sculpture in motion.

Drum center fabrication

Once the aluminum tube had caps welded to the ends and the edges were filed/sanded smooth, it was mounted in a lathe and bored in the center with a 5/8" bit. I commissioned a local machine shop to customize flanges that would be bolted to the ends of the tube, which would in turn be bolted to the machine shaft. This fixes the drum to its shaft in a way that I can still disassemble it for shipping.

Pictured below is the tube sitting in an MDF housing, which I made solely for the purposes of allowing it to sit straight while I drilled and tapped holes in the side. These threaded holes will be where the drum's struts will screw into. Note my rudimentary solution for extending the table of my cheapo drill press: wood blocks, masonite, and newspaper. Work with what you've got!

Drum support structure

Okay, here we are in April 2007. I was working on other projects at the same time, so this is about 6 months after I started. Significant progress has been made: I know that I need a plexiglas drum to float vertically in front of me when I am sitting on the bike, with its center lined up to the height of my eyes. The drum will be 4' wide and 1' think. I acquired a pair of 'pillow block' bearings to hold a machine shaft, which will pass through the center of the drum. It gets mounted to a drum support structure, made out of the same 2" mild steel square tube that the rest is made from.

The silver cylinder pictured is a hollow aluminum tube that I bought and asked the metal tech to TIG weld two flush caps to the ends. I envision the drum struts to be made from aluminum rod (pictured), on which I start the process of tapping threads on to the ends in order for it to screw into the tube. I later abandon this in favour of threaded steel rod. I also have a lens/mirror from an overhead projector (pictured), which may be incorporated into the viewing apparatus.