Amsterdam is famous for a lot of things: canals, tulips, a liberal attitude to sex and drugs. But nowhere on any such list would you find parking spaces. In fact Amsterdam, like many Dutch towns and cities is famous for going to great lengths to discourage motor vehicles in favour of more environmentally-friendly modes of transport like cycling and walking.
So if there is such a thing as a Dutch movement promoting freedom for motorists, they will be delighted to hear about a novel development made possible by a pair of Red Rooster air hoists. On 3 March a cellar beneath a building on the Keijzersgracht in the centre of the city was turned into an underground car park.
The building is about 100 years old. There was no way to get cars in and out of the cellar, other than by installing an elevator, which would have been prohibitively expensive. So instead a complete section of concrete floor, weighing approximately 12t, was simply cut away and lowered 2m at one end down into the cellar, thus creating an access ramp. The hoists used were air-operated Red Rooster TCR 600 models, which have a safe working load of 6t and are manufactured by Yokota Europa.
The whole project took local building firm Rami about a week to complete, though the hoisting operation was concluded in just a few hours.
