London’s suspended bicycle highway

Image: Courtesy of Foster + Partners

Have you ever imagined yourself going through the air above the traffic on your regular route to work? Well, for those who live in London this incredible idea may be close to becoming reality...

The world famous architect Norman Foster, a passionate cyclist, recently unveiled its vision of sustainable mobility for the city of London. Foster + Partners, Exterior Architecture and Space Synta have jointly developed SkyCycle, a new approach to transform cycling in London, by creating elevated cycle routes over existing suburban railway corridors, making it possible to cycle freely over the city rooftops, with no buses, no cars and no stress.

The network provides over 220 kilometres of suspended cycle routes which can be accessed at over 200 entrance points. Almost six million people live within the catchment area of the proposed network, half of whom live and work within 10 minutes of an entrance. Each route can accommodate 12,000 cyclists per hour and will improve journey times by up to 29 minutes.

London is a city reference worldwide. With a transport network within the limits of its capacity and population growth estimated in 12% for the next decade, it faces a real challenge to improve mobility, addressing the needs of pedestrians and cyclists in the city’s crowded streets and in areas where the public realm is poor.

Over the last decade, cycling in London has grown by 70%, and on major roads the number of cyclists has increased by 173%. However, this still only translates as 2% of all journeys and falls short of many other UK and European cities. Road safety is one of the main reasons for this low uptake, since 20% of serious casualties on the roads involve cyclists. In a big city such as London, creating direct and safer routes for cyclists would demand severe impacts to the existing roadway network, creating segregated cycle lanes, redesigning junctions and reducing the speed of traffic.

The SkyCycle approach is revolutionary to ease capacity constraints on London’s public transport systems and promote healthy, environmentally friendly transport choices, with potential applications in cities all around the world.