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Sweeping Industry Operations |
Three Bike-Powered Bike Lane Sweeper Models Now Available
Whether it's leaves, gravel, metal or glass debris, riding a bicycle on dirty pavement makes for an unpleasant, bumpy experience. It may even drive you off the bike lane and into traffic!
The Bike Lane Sweeper Co. now offers three types of sweepers made for bike lanes. All are designed to be pulled by a bicycle rider:
Debris in bike lanes is nothing new. In most any city with bike lanes, officials regularly hear complaints about glass, gravel and chunks of dirt in the bike lanes. These can create safety hazards and can even pop bike tires, according to Kara Vernor, executive director of the Napa County Bicycle Coalition. City street sweepers typically handle that, but they can't reach debris if there are protected lanes marked by a series of waist-high plastic posts. That's why the Coalition, which is a bicycle safety advocacy nonprofit, recently purchased one of these human-powered street sweepers that's towed behind a bike. "Infrastructure evolves and programs evolve with it, so we're giving it a try," Vernor said. "It was just really important to us to make sure those class four bike lanes stay in, for many reasons, but first and foremost to make bicycling safer." The lack of a proper sweeping solution is a major reason the city of Napa's Public Works Department decided against adding protected bike lanes to Freeway Drive in 2023. The city instead opted for buffered lanes that create horizontal separation between bicyclists and car drivers via an extended, painted buffer on the street. The protected lanes provide an important safety boost. The flexible plastic posts that keep regularly-sized sweepers out of the lane are said to reduce crash risk in half, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The Coalition said it chose to use the new machine in its Imola Avenue Corridor, because it's a high-traffic area with a poor safety record. Previously, the Coalition found that keeping the bridge's bike lanes clear of debris – which was needed for them to remain in the city – was very labor-intensive. For example, the Coalition's first attempt to hand-sweep the bridge took about three hours for just one side. So, the Coalition was keen on buying California inventor Pierre Lermant's battery- and people-powered street sweeper. During its demo of the sweeper the Coalition managed to clean both sides of the bridge in about two hours. Joel King, secretary of the Coalition's board, launched a GoFundMe on May 21 to purchase the sweeper. It had a $4,500 price tag, but Coalition member Bill Tuikka had pledged to fulfill nearly half the goal. Fifty donors helped the Coalition raise the remaining $2,500 in one day. "I think people were just so excited to see it as a solution, to see it as something the public could contribute to," Vernor said. "Of course cleaning the streets is absolutely the responsibility of local governments, but there are probably opportunities with a machine like this to help." The first run of the sweeper, June 17, picked up nearly 36 gallons of debris, along with two buckets of larger debris. Now, Vernor said, the Coalition hopes for a volunteer-driven system where people can complement the efforts of local governments to keep streets free from debris. "It's pretty satisfying to have that immediate kind of gratifying experience of riding your bike over and picking up all that dirt," she continued. "It's a great interim solution for cities big enough to have a growing network of protected bike lanes.
As the city works to convince everyday folks to give biking a try, these conditions work against our transportation goals by telling Portlanders, "We don't care about people who use bike lanes," said one spokesperson. To counteract the problem, the nonprofit advocacy group BikeLoud PDX partnered with Bike Lane Sweeper's creator Pierre Lermant. Since then, the two have become close collaborators. For its part, the City agreed to do run a trial where volunteer bike lane sweeper operators could leave bags full of gravel along streets, then city trucks would come through and pick them up. Photos shared by users of the sweeper attest to the rave reviews – often showing a lane full of gravel become perfectly smooth in the wake of the sweeper's spinning brushes. One resident, Nic Cota, shared in a BikePortland comment that when he got a chance to use the sweeper. "I got about 5 cargo bikes full of gravel on the small, but critical bike lanes on Killingsworth between Interstate and Michigan yesterday. Easily 1,000 lbs of gravel all said and done. Its amazing how much was in the bike lanes alone!" Cota wrote. Check out the Bike Lane Sweeper website to see a variety of photos and videos of the various models of 'pedal-powered' sweepers in action. Although the small machines may not meet the needs of some cities with dedicated bike lanes, they may well provide a needed solution to many. And, with the advantage of having dedicated, volunteer bike riders pull the sweepers in order to keep their bike lanes clean, the bike lane sweeper models could be a cost-effective solution to your bike lane debris problems. You can contact Bike Lane Sweeper by using this link to send an email to them. The company's website is www.bikelanesweeper.com. If you have a question or comment about this article, please let us know. If appropriate, we'll add it to the bottom of this page. |
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The story in Portland, OR, is somewhat similar. A big ice storm in late 2023/early 2024 required Portland city officials to put out a large amount of traction material. This created a massive and dangerous mess citywide: Bike lanes and road shoulders are a mess and millions of tiny little pebbles are creating slip hazards for bike tires.