E-Bikes and Sustainability

With her concept for an ecologically sustainable, holistic e-bike rental station, Theresa Otto, an interior design student at Mainz University of Applied Sciences, took third place—worth 500 euros—in the university competition “Urban Planning: E-Bikes and Sustainability.” Her concept, “Bike Tree,” demonstrates how storage and charging stations for rental e-bikes can be self-sufficient and, with integrated vegetation, also offer added value for the environment.
Alternative transportation concepts and sustainable modes of transport were the focus of the competition organized by the bicycle retailer Fahrrad XXL, which was open to students and urban and transportation planners who had recently entered the workforce. First prize went to Claudia Gerken (German Sport University Cologne) and Jonas Bettenbühl (RWTH Aachen University). Using the city of Aachen as a case study, the two students designed a “vision of the city of the future” with short-, medium-, and long-term measures to establish e-bikes and bicycles as an integral part of a sustainable infrastructure. Second prize was awarded to Lucas Reyer, a graduate of TU Dresden. In his concept, he focused not only on infrastructural changes in public transportation spaces but also on the associated requirements for housing, workplaces, and various service providers that support the daily routine of an e-bike rider. “It’s not just in the participants’ ideas that you can see the importance of sustainable transportation structures becoming increasingly ingrained in people’s minds. Especially among young people, it’s no longer just about how to get from A to B as comfortably as possible. The focus is increasingly on the environmental sustainability of one’s own mode of transportation as well as on the added value for one’s own health,” said Thomas Musch, who selected the winners as a member of a four-person expert jury.