I hereby propose 421km of skyroads for Vancouver. I also propose 674 miles of skyroads for Los Angeles, 214km of skyroads for Calgary and 850km of skyroads for Toronto.

Nice concept. We will more likely end up with one strip of about 70 metres that begins and ends at a 5 way road junction and totally fails to connect with any existing cycle paths.

Bruce

IF it happens it would be great for London,and i for one would go out and buy a new mountain bike.

As it stands at the moment cycling in London scares the pants off me.

My big question is who is going to pick up the HUGE tab for it to be built,.....Brussels ?

Mista H

Exactly my point. My house also on the market for a world-record $975 trillion dollars. It is the highest asking price for  private house ever recorded. My old mountain bike is also for sale for $5.45 million. The priciest bike ever offered for sale.

People can propose whatever they like (Although Norm admittedly has a pretty good track record of getting stuff he designs actually built). Makes no sense. What is needed instead of billions spent on imaginary bike infrastructure is just for motorists to stop killing us.

And your proposals to achieve this are...................

Criminalise the killing of people with cars.

It already is over here

In theory. In practice, it is an "oopsy" at worst. More likely that the police will pause just long enough to slap summons on the the corpse.

Here we go again.

Yes. I'm stopping now.

Why a MOUNTAIN BIKE ? in London of all places ?

Brussels ? why Brussels ?

Why not those who would benefit most ? ie those nasty bus and lorry drivers who would otherwise kill cyclists ? or motorists who's journeys might otherwise be impeded by these cyclists, or pedestrians who might otherwise be knocked over and injured by cyclists, or....but Brussels ?

.....happy as can be, all good friends and part of the family.............

Cheer up Howard, things might get worse !

about the most realistic assessment on this topic to date.

My understanding is the proposal is for private finance. If you think about it, it is an enormous marketing opportunity. Olympic in scale and futuristic. May help cement London's position as arguably the greatest city on the planet.

Don, I imagine cycling along this futuristic Skyway and hearing your gnashing of teeth as you sit in a traffic jam below chugging out fumes in your convertible and worrying about whether cyclists have paid as much as car drivers to pollute the planet and overload the health service. The absence of cyclists at ground-level meaning you have taken to blaming pedestrians for all road deaths.

'What's this?' you suddenly cry. 'I thought the forecast was good.' Its not rain Don, sorry fella.

Then i could use it both on & off road. Good or what !!

Mista H

Brussels was just a thought,TBH i could not give a toss.

Mista H

Might be worth a quick read of "Investing in Roads :- Pricing, Costs and New Capacity" by Archer & Glaister whilst at Imperial College.

I would only treat it as a starter, but it outlines the concept of cost v benefit and also the subject of who might pay for new schemes in the long run (as opposed to who puts up the initial funding)

At this stage, pricing is a bit rough and ready......but as a starter for discussion

I would estimate capital cost at c. £10m per km ie c. £20bn. Asume this includes operating costs over a 25 year PFI deal.

Assume 12,000 cyclists per route per day per rush-hour making it 120,000 cyclists per day in the rush hour using the system but round this up to 200,000 cyclists using the London system

Each cyclist would be associated with an investment cost of £10,000, which, over a 25 period would equate to £400pa user charge.

£400 pa seems to be an incredibly good deal for a cyclist to have virually unlimited safe access to much of London.

Bearing in mind that I live/work in Berkshire/Hampshire/Wiltshire and only use public transport to access/travel around London on the very few occasions that I go up there, I wouldn't expect to benefit from or contribute towards the cost of the scheme, although I might consider investing in it.

Yes, I know the figures are Mickey Mouse, but somebody has to start, don't they Howard ?

Not new concepts. Any project appraisal would include cost-benefit and cashflow analysis as a matter of course. Neither public nor private finance would be forthcoming without either.

The real subtext. Don, you're consistent at least

That particular paper is more than 5 years old, and of course the concept of cost/benefit analysis isn't new, in fact its pretty old hat. I refered to the paper because it is a very easy read and it might open the eyes of one or two here to the bigger picture surrounding infrastructure investment schemes.

Keeping cyclists safe from motorised traffic, the first phase of SkyCycle would offer a route from Stratford in east London to Liverpool Street Station in the centre, at a cost of over £200 million.

The above is an abstract from one of the newspapers that reported on the proposed consultation last week. Given that the chainage from Liverpool Street to Stratford just a smidgen over 4 miles, let's call it 6.7 km, I had better update my "rough and ready" estimate of cost from £10m per km to £30m per km.

The report also suggests that 400,000 cyclists would access the eventual 136 mile system daily rather than my 200,000 estimate.

Hopefully others on this forum have got more reliable estimates

Getting somebody with a bit of imagination to design it would be a good idea.

Surely up and over the gherkin is the way to go. 20% gradient ascent with a dozen or so switchbacks, a la Alpe D'Huez. Long sweeping decent, a la Col De La Madeleine.

It's a no-brainer.