Wooooo Hooooo! Let's Shweeb!

Well, you can thank this week’s blog to my new hobby of “tweeting.”  One of the other professionals that I follow made a “tweet” that led to a way cool website whose idea is worth mentioning.  The future of this “pod in the sky”  is likely “pie in the sky,” but it makes one wonder what the future of transportation could look like.

Pollution, carbon emissions, global warming, traffic congestion, green cars…these are all the industry headlines that plaster the Internet and your favorite trade publications every week.  Well, a group of engineers and designers in New Zealand have created a mode of transportation that eliminates nearly all of the environmental concerns that are under such scrutiny today.  No, it’s not a magic carpet ( how sweet would that be?).  And it’s more primitive and environmentally efficient than SkyTran.  Ladies and Gentleman, I introduce to you…

THE SHWEEB

The world’s first human powered monorail, The Shweeb is “the most efficient vehicle on earth, the most inexpensive infrastructure of any proposed urban transit and one of the highest capacity systems available – potentially delivering thousand’s of people per hour in a very small airspace. All this with zero carbon emissions and no parking worries or cost!”

Six years in the making, entrepreneur and design team leader Geoffrey Barnett finally constructed The Shweeb in 2007 ” in direct response to the transportation needs of today and the future.”   As of today, The Shweeb concept is nothing more than a ride at an adventure park in New Zealand.  But  Barnett and his team are convinced that The Shweeb is the way of the  future.  This is definitely a very cool concept that on the surface would solve many of  the traffic and congestion and environmental pollution problems that  we face today.  It would also be an emerging engineering concept that possibly would challenge and excite transportation engineers of all types.

Environmentally speaking, this is a great idea, but Clearly Geoffrey and his team have their work cut out for them as they continue to push this concept of a human powered monorail system.  Personally speaking, I am skeptical at best. The “pod” itself that one drives in has little to be desired in the way of comfort and the issues are infinite- what happens if the chain or the pedals break – would Triple A (AAA) show up?  How would one travel with family or clients?  And what about ventilation? Plus, I have no desire to show up for work or a lunch meeting as a soaking wet sweat ball!  We would need Xzibit and the crew from the MTV show Pimp My Ride to develop some nice custom Shweeb vehicles to better suit our needs !

Check out The Shweeb in action:

I read on Gizmodo.com, “Well, thank your lucky stars that the people who run our cities have at least some sense in their heads, because it would be highly doubtful for this to appear in the flesh anytime soon.”

Do you believe this engineering concept will ever come to fruition in any way, shape or form as an alternative form of transportation within our urban communities? Or is it merely a pipe dream that will never get beyond the gates of a Six Flags amusement park?

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]]> http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2009/07/29/is-there-a-future-in-civilstructural-shweebeneering/feed/ 4 aepcentral Shweeb Photo Shweeb3 Bookmark and Share http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2009/03/25/can-you-name-that-highway/ http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2009/03/25/can-you-name-that-highway/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:35:00 +0000 aepcentral http://civilengineeringcentral.wordpress.com/?p=913 ]]> By Matt Barcus
President, Precision Executive Search
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC, home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com

My father and grandfather were chemical engineers, my younger brother studied civil engineering, my older sister scored over 1400 on her SAT’s.  Apparently that “smart” gene, along with the gene that provides a full head of hair, managed to bypass me.   Though I never even had the chance to be an engineer, I have always been fascinated with the final products that are churned out by architects, engineers and construction professionals.  I remember a couple of years ago when we were developing the website for Precision Executive Search and I was in search of some cool aerial photos of some crazy interchanges.  We ended up going with photos of bridges to go along with our tag line of “Bridging The Gap,”  but we found some pretty amazing photos that we ended up not using.   Besides my intrigue with long span bridges, highway tunnels, elevated highways and uniquely designed and structurally sound buildings, I am even more fascinated with the design and construction of the interchanges that can be found in some of the most traveled areas across the globe.  What our audience of civil engineering professionals is capable of accomplishing is nothing short of amazing to me.  

So, after perusing  the Internet I came across some cool videos (accompanied by music, so turn down your speakers if you are in cube world)  that blast through some of the craziest highways and interchanges around the globe.  I began to wonder,

Who within our blogosphere could identify some of these interchanges?

 Maybe you designed or built one of them, maybe you proposed or bid on one of them,  maybe you attended a conference where it was profiled, or, maybe you hit it up every day on your way to work.  Whatever the case may be, I would like to challenge you to….

NAME THAT INTERCHANGE!!

Thanks for participating…we look forward to your responses!

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