In the middle of your morning commute, you wouldn't be alone if you've ever entertained dreams of lifting off into the air and zooming past traffic. One Bulgarian architect has taken that fantasy to heart. At a recent TEDx conference in Thessaloniki, Martin Angelov revealed Kolelinia, a zipline-style system that would allow travelers to get around town using battery-powered backpack harnesses. The wire system, originally intended for bicycling, would stay at ground level in pedestrian zones and rise up in congested traffic areas.
Here's the architect's breathless vision, via Treehugger:
"We drive vehicles that are about 20 times heavier than our bodies and build expensive roads with heavy materials. We are all waiting to run out of petroleum and then to live in a cleaner world, but this won't happen soon! What if we change the streets in the city center with taut wires? What if our vehicles are compact enough to carry them with us as a bag? Kolelinio is a concept for creating a completely new weightless layer for transportation on a higher level."
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Is getting from Point A to Point B with a backpack and an intricate cable system worth considering in some far off future, or is it just a logistically-flawed pie in the sky? Check out Treehugger to read more and watch a concept video of the system.
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