Cycling Copenhagen, Through North American Eyes from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

What is a Pedicab?

Pedicabs come in many different shapes and sizes, and their design and appearance often differ significantly around the world.  However, the general design of most pedicabs is tricycle-like.  There are two versions of the tricycle-style pedicab.  The first version – often called the rickshaw-style – consists of a pedicab with one wheel on the front where the driver pedals and two wheels on the back where the passengers sit.  The second version of the tricycle pedicab – often called the cyclo – allows the passengers to ride in front over the two wheels, while the driver sits in the back and pedals over the single wheel.

Standard Tricycle Style Pedicab – Image Source: pdxpedicab

Reverse Tricycle Style Pedicab – Image Source: pedalpeople

Other less common types of pedicabs include the quadracycle or bicycles with bike trailers that can accommodate passengers.  In general, most pedicab designs place the passengers over the longest axle of the pedicab (usually between two parallel wheels), while the driver maintains control of the pedicab with the drive-train and handlebars over the short axle.  There are many different pedicab manufacturers throughout the world, although there are no construction standards for building pedicabs, so choose your ride wisely.  At the same time, many cities or other areas have taken it upon themselves to impose some pedicab standards and regulations.

Quadracycle Style Pedicab – Image Source: quadracycleinc

Bike Trailer Style Pedicab – Image Source: Da Kine Pedicabs

Pedicabs are also outfitted and decorated in many different ways.  For example, some pedicabs provide a covered awning over the passengers, while others leave you to the elements.  Lately, pedicabs are getting a more modern, aerodynamic-looking design and some have even started to look like small vehicles.

Image Source: Streetsblog

Pedicab History

Rickshaws, which are carts pulled by a person on foot, have been around since the 1800’s and were especially common throughout Asia.  The cycle rickshaw began to appear sometime later in the 1920’s and also in Asia.  Slowly, the cycle rickshaw replaced the cart-style rickshaw, as they were somewhat safer, more efficient, and easier on the driver.  For more on pedicab history, check out Pop’s Pedicabs, where a great review can be found.

Pedicab Uses

First and foremost, pedicabs are used for transportation.  Although, due to the versatile nature and sturdy design of many pedicabs, they can certainly be used for bike delivery purposes, as well.  Pedicabs also provide a unique and highly visible forum for bike advertising, as the wide area of the passenger seat compartment is perfect for advertising banners.

Advertising Via Pedicab – Image Source: YellowBikeCab

Pedicab Riders

It’s important to spend a few minutes talking about who actually uses pedicabs.  More often than not, pedicabs are associated with tourism or special events.  And in many places, this is certainly the case.  As my experience in San Deigo – surrounded by literally hundreds of pedicabs – might suggest, riding in a pedicab is certainly seen as a recreational activity.  The main bulk of the pedicabs there stayed close to the tourist areas of Seaport Village, Harbor Drive, and downtown San Diego.  I did not see a single pedicab outside of these areas.  However, in other places in the U.S., such as New York City, pedicabs are used more frequently for commuting and transportation around the city.  And in many places outside of the U.S., pedicabs are one of the most efficient forms of transportation in heavily congested cities, where sitting in traffic in a car can be unbearable.

At the same time, there have been lots of recent murmurs about the dangers of pedicabs, what with some bad crashes and accidents lately in NYC and other places.  Even so, it seems pointless to argue that a few pedicab accidents should discredit the whole industry, when there are plenty of other kinds of transportation accidents all the time.

Overall, pedicabs are an eco-friendly, utilitarian form of transportation for getting around urban environments.  They certainly have limitations, but for short trips, they are the perfect solution for getting off your own feet or legs for a bit and still going by bike.

My First Ride: Jan Gehl from hyumaf on Vimeo.

Via Bike Portland.

Via Treehugger.

It’s great to see that bike moves are so popular around the world from Boulder to Barcelona!

Readers: Have you ever done a bike move?  We’d love to hear about your experience.

Moving House With Bicycles in Barcelona from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

Via Copenhagenize.

Via Velo Mondial

Nonetheless, the purpose of this series is to discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of Google’s current Bike-There feature; to compare and contrast Google’s feature with other online bike mapping tools; and to help you find the best options for getting around by bike.  Therefore, today’s post will compare and contrast the Google Bike-There feature with OpenStreetMap, which is an open-source, free, editable online mapping service.  Future posts in this series will compare and contrast Google’s Bike-There feature with other online bike mapping tools, for example Ride the City and others.  Finally, I will do a test run with the different options to find a route in the same city to compare and contrast the results.  In the end, we hope to have provided a comprehensive overview of your online bike mapping options.

Online Bike Mapping Options

First, a bit about online bike mapping.  Not all online bike mapping tools are created equal.  Some sites allow you to add and edit your own data, as well as view other users’ data, while other sites spit out routes for you based on your to and from locations.  Additionally, some sites have more of a sport or recreational cycling focus, such as MapMyRide, giving you information about popular routes for training, while others are more neutral in terms of the route options.

Thus far, Google’s new Bike-There feature is definitely one of the most comprehensive options available online, as many of the online bike mapping sites are only available in very limited places.  At the same time, many city or county governments in the U.S. have GIS (geographic information system) divisions who have developed bike route layers and maps for the local area, which can provide great insight at the local level, as well.  For example, Tucson, Arizona, has a great local bike map.  With all of the options from local government to Google, it is possible to piece together information about what routes to take by bike, but wouldn’t it be great if you had all of that useful information in one place?

OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap solves the problem of having to look in multiple places for route information – to some degree.  OpenStreetMap is a free, editable map of the entire world.  What separates OpenStreetMap from Google Maps, MapQuest, or other similar online mapping tools is that it is dynamic, user-oriented, and transparent.  Perhaps the OpenStreetMap Wiki sums it up best:

OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them.  The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways.

The basic problem that OpenStreeMap is trying to overcome is the capitalist one.  Yes, it seems like knowledge about where things are, where roads go, etc. should be free and available to all, but it’s not.  This kind of knowledge is owned by someone, licensed by someone, etc., including all of the maps you get from Google.  Therefore, OpenStreetMap is open source, wiki-style project that is owned by everyone.  Yes, this does mean that there may be accuracy issues, but hopefully I am not the first person to tell you that all maps have accuracy issues.  And some maps even have errors placed in them on purpose.  Maps are indeed human constructions and therefore, can lie and mislead.

OpenStreetMap gets some of its map data from free government resources, such as TIGER, in the U.S.  The rest of the map data comes from users around the world who contribute to the database through a variety of different methods.  You can learn more about where OpenStreetMap gets their data, their views on mapping, and much, much more at their FAQ.

With regard to cycling, OpenStreetMap allows each individual cyclist to edit or view data based on his or her riding preferences.  One is not limited to avoiding major intersections, like Google’s current Bike-There feature does, for example, and instead, one can choose a route based more on personal preferences.  This is limited however, by lack of elevation and terrain information, as this kind of map data is often expensive to obtain or copyrighted, and thus, doesn’t really fit with the OpenStreetMap model.  Nonetheless, the bike routes that one gets from OpenStreetMap are not inherently limited by the algorithm that generates them, rather, they are limited by the users.  There are indeed trade-offs to both.

Additionally, a useful cycling-focused spin-off of OpenStreetMap is OpenCycleMap, which is somewhat limited in scope at this time.

In general, OpenStreetMap is a great open source option, which allows for much greater flexibility and transparency than Google’s Bike-There feature.  At the same time, Google’s feature does allow for very quick generation of routes when you really need to know how to get somewhere by bicycle quickly.

How it Works:

Cycle Smart:

Via Cyclelicio.us.