The SkyCycle project aims to address the lack of space on London's streets: they are already fully occupied by cars, pedestrians and cyclists, but the city continues to grow and its population is expected to increase by 12% over the next 10 years.
Ten new bike paths with a total length of 220 km, a width of up to 15 m and a capacity of 12 thousand people per hour will cover the entire metropolis and will allow citizens to get to work with convenience and absolutely free (the latter is especially important in light of the recently significantly increased ticket prices for electric trains). According to the calculations of the designers, SkyCycle will save an average of 29 minutes on the way. In addition, safety is important: last year, 14 cyclists died under the wheels of cars on the streets of London, with 6 deaths in the two weeks of November. After them, according to a survey conducted by the Air Force, every fifth cyclist in the capital refused to use his two-wheeled vehicle. Against the background of active propaganda by Mayor Boris Johnson of this type of transport, such statistics are a sign of a serious defeat for his policy.
According to the calculations of the authors of the project, the construction of "heavenly bike paths" will not be more difficult than the electrification of British railways that is currently underway: their supports, like power transmission towers, can be installed without interfering with the movement of trains. Cyclists will be able to get to the top using more than 200 hydraulic lifts and ramps, some of which will be located near existing railway stations. In general, the network will cover 6 million citizens, half of whom will live and work within a 10-minute walk to the "entrance" to such a path.
While the plan is to implement a 6.5-kilometer track from the Stratford area in east London to Liverpool Street station, its budget will be 220 million pounds. In general, the project can be implemented in 20 years. It has already found support from the British railway monopoly Network Rail and the metropolitan transport authority Transport for London, but not from potential investors, so there is no money yet to even test its feasibility.
