Monday, 7 September 2009

WALKMOBILE

In 1975 the Austrian civil engineer Hermann Knoflacher developed the Walkmobile or Gehzeug a wood frame worn by a pedestrian with the purpose to occupy the same space quantity as a motorist. The walkmobile is a tool of protest against the record of cars in city that easily allows to visualize the irrationality of the engine urban traffic and the fact that it takes up an excessive part of ground .
The experiment of Knoflacher has been repeated in different big cities in the world, from Austria to Thailand, showing the territorial potentialities of the urban areas without cars.

From 1975 Hermann Knoflacher was a Professor at Vienna Univesity of Tecnology and from 1985 a manager of the Institute for the planning of the transports and traffic at Vienna Technical University . He has given a fundamental contribution to the Sanfte Mobilität, the German activist movement for Sustainable Transports.

I GO TO WORK ON SURF

In the summer 2008 the British daily papers published a curious news. Fed up with the hours of queue in the traffic and of the overcrowded public means of transport in London, the English Andy White chose to use the surf table to go to work. After having got the permission from the coastal watch, every day it crosses eight kilometers on the Thames, in about two hours he reaches the garage of a friend, where he leaves the table, he washes himself and gets dressed then he walks to his office in the City.This is an original example of sustainable mobility that promotes the urban bathing and navigation.
We love you, Andy!