Friday, October 27, 2006

Ultimate bicycle facility: 35km air conditioned bike path

Qatar cycle path

Qatar to build 35km air-conditioned cycle path.

It's not really air-conditioned: water will mist from the canopy onto cyclists to cool them. Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani wants to get people riding bicycles. One of the challenges, though, is Qatar is hotter than a blast furnace.

But this is no sweat when you have billions in oil money, courtesy of American motorists. The Emir hired the Rand Corporation and Rand proposed a 35 kilometer shaded, solar-powered, mist-cooled bike path. With no cumbersome democratic processes to get in the way the project sailed through to approval. For more details, see Vélo Mondial's page describing this project.

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4 comments:

  1. What an incredible bike path. Isn't Doha also the location of the world's largest, indoor ski slope too?

    Looks like I'll have to visit one day.

    Respectfully,
    Larry Lagarde
    RideTHISbike.com
    Urging bicycling for recreation, commuting, health and a better future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One of my neighbors visits the Middle East for business and he went to Ski Dubai (in the UAE) and brought back photos. Pretty cool place. Dubai is about a hundred miles from Abu Dhabi (where the cooled bike path is planned).

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  3. Oh those rich Arab showoffs. What will they think of next? UAE Bobsled Team.

    Actually, I remember a similar scam back in the day, like back in 1993. Some dude in the States proposed such a scheme. He shoulda talked to Disneyland, instead of a low-paid, goofball bicycle coordinator for the City of Hollywood, FL.

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