A local cyclist has an innovative plan to clean up bike lanes along the Sunshine Coast.
Cedric Eveleigh is an engineer and volunteer of Transporation Choices, an organization that advocates for cycling and other modes of transportation.
He says he and other volunteers have often gone out to sweep local bike lanes because of debris.
“I was volunteering at a few of these events, and they got me thinking while sweeping a section of bike lane by hand, that perhaps you can have a powered brush pushed by bike,” said Eveleigh. “I googled the idea and found a guy called Pierre Lermant and he had developed some prototype proof-of-concept bike lane sweepers. I reached out to him and told him that I would be interested in helping with improving the designs and to build more of them and we hit it off right away.”
Eveleigh recently built a bike lane sweeper which trails behind his bike. He says it’s important to keep cycling safe from debris.
“Sometimes not only could you get flat tires, but you could even get cyclists into car traffic, so we want to keep all the dangerous debris off the bike lane,” said Eveleigh. “The sweepers we have are a sort of trailer that is attached to a bike and has a brush with an electric motor, that drives the brush and sweeps the debris.”
To cover the costs of building and operating those sweepers, a GoFundMe has been set up with a goal of raising $3,500.
