Monthly Archives: February 2008

My kinda westway

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I have a dream. A dream that one day I could hop on my bike, nip up onto some elevated cycleway, get up to 20mph and just keep going, thusly reaching my aunt’s place in Leytonstone in less than an hour. Apparently, this dream isn’t quite as mad as it sounds, because someone’s looked at doing something similar in Toronto. Also, right now Ken Livingstone (in full uh-oh election year mode) has mooted a transformation of cycling here with 12 “cycling motorways”, which alas have been welcomed by Freight and motorist organisations as a way to clear cyclists out of the way.

Just imagine it, take all the money you’d spend on something like Crossrail (£12bn+?) and for maybe £1bn we could have a suspended cycleway running east to west – maybe even far enough to get people to beyond the M25. It would be revolutionary, it would be different and it would change London totally. The more I think about it the more I like the idea. After all, what surer way is there to get people to travel in a zero-carbon method?