SHWEEB.: Episode 35

(or listen on YouTube)

Today's gadgetbahn is the Shweeb, a prototype suspended bicycle-pod railway built at an amusement park in New Zealand. Whose idea was this? How did it get built? Is this just a revival of Victorian-era engineering? What did the Shweeb do with its million dollars? What does this gadgetbahn tell us about how we build bike infrastructure? All this, after the news.

Timestamps

References & notes

  1. [1] Mass Transit: Edmonton bus ridership returns to pre-pandemic levels
  2. [2] Wikipedia: Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad
  3. [3] Wikipedia: Suspension railway
  4. [4] Wikipedia: Memphis Suspension Railway
  5. [5] Wikipedia: Wuppertal Schwebebahn
  6. [6] Wikipedia: Shweeb
  7. [7] Wikipedia: Trampe bicycle lift
  8. [8] Wikipedia: History of monorail ยง Suspended and bicycle railways
  9. [9] Shweeb: What is Shweeb Racer
  10. [10] NZ Herald: Shweeb: How New Zealand's Hyperloop contender became a theme park attraction
  11. [11] Bloomberg CityLab: Whatever Happened to The Shweeb?
  12. [12] NextBigFuture.com: Shweeb, bike sharing and compact bike parking would be 20 times cheaper for an urban commuting network
  13. [13] CNN: Why did Google bet $1 million on Shweeb?
  14. [14] The Left-handed Cyclist: Pedaling Along the Skyway
  15. [15] Stuff.co.nz: Businessman wants 'Superman' monorail ride to go with Christchurch's new stadium
  16. [16] Tom Scott: Google gave the Shweeb $1,000,000.