SkyCycle is a big idea about design. It is an idea on the scale of the investment that the Victorians made in the 1850s in a modern sewage system for London that put an end to cholera. At the same time the project created the embankments along the Thames that now give large stretches of the river their character. The work relieved traffic congestion, and also dealt with regular flooding. SkyCycle would also bring a wide range of benefits. It would help to keep cyclists safe, reduce congestion on existing transit systems, traffic pollution, and create a modern infrastructure that could support workshops, and markets.

SkyCycle is unlikely to be realized in full in the near future, even if the network is capable of taking shape in discrete sections. To Norman Foster’s continuing frustration, contemporary Britain is not so keen on big ideas as its Victorian forbears once were. But it is worth reflecting on SkyCycle at some length, in part for its bold thinking about new approaches to transport in big cities, and also because it raises important questions about how and why some individual interventions can change a city, and others do not...[+]