A floating cycletrack you say? Not here…

[cyclingfool]

Great. So now boaters will be able to yell at London cyclists, too. I can hear it already, in an English accent of course. “Get off the river. Ride on land, you scofflaw!”

[mstone]

that’s an earnest proposal just like the one to build a tower to the moon so everyone can dine on free blue cheese

[bobco85]

I find the idea rather fascinating. Here’s another article with information on the proposal: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/02/floating-cycle-path-proposed-for-river-thames-london/

Additional key information: the path is going to be 12 km (~7.5 miles), it will be multi-use, and it will be tolled at £1.50 per trip.

The floating path is supposed to rise and fall with the river’s water level which sounds really cool, but I do not know the mechanisms involved with such a feat. I wonder, would it be cheaper to build and maintain if there was a fixed structure like a bridge? Not being familiar with the area, I wonder if something like a greenway a.k.a. MUP could not be built on the land along the river like the Hudson/East River Greenways in NYC.

There are supposed to be sensors to detect any sort of wave activity, but I’m interested to see what measures they can take to lessen the impact of any rogue waves. Dodging tidal waves and wakes of large ships is not something I think the average cyclist expects on their commute!

Cool stuff, though. Thanks for the link!

[AFHokie]

Interesting idea, but after going over a few pontoon bridges in the military, I wonder how much it’ll bob from the weight of a group of riders. Some could find that unnerving.

I also imagine places like the Hudson or even the Potomac, ice would be a concern during the winter. Does the Thames ever freeze over?

[mstone]

@bobco85 96614 wrote:

Additional key information: the path is going to be 12 km (~7.5 miles), it will be multi-use, and it will be tolled at £1.50 per trip.[/quote]

I’d say that one of the key pieces of information is that it’s a bike path costing well upwards of a billion dollars.

Quote:

The floating path is supposed to rise and fall with the river’s water level which sounds really cool, but I do not know the mechanisms involved with such a feat. I wonder, would it be cheaper to build and maintain if there was a fixed structure like a bridge? Not being familiar with the area, I wonder if something like a greenway a.k.a. MUP could not be built on the land along the river like the Hudson/East River Greenways in NYC.

I assume they have similar environmental rules to the US, and digging new bridge piers all along the river for 8 miles would be an issue. Probably really expensive also–that’s a lot of work in tidal water. Floating bridges are a pretty well established technology, so I’d expect that part is feasible. I don’t think there’s any available right of way along the river in London to create a new trail. What space isn’t taken up by private property going down to the water was turned into parks in the 19th century or roads in the 20th.

[mstone]

@AFHokie 96617 wrote:

I also imagine places like the Hudson or even the Potomac, ice would be a concern during the winter. Does the Thames ever freeze over?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs

[cyclingfool]

@bobco85 96614 wrote:

Dodging tidal waves and wakes of large ships is not something I think the average cyclist expects on their commute!

Just put up a “No Wake” sign on the shore. It sure seems to keep boaters on the Potomac from going fast and causing waves. :rolleyes:

[lordofthemark]

“The proposal isn’t just wrong. It’s a whole club sandwich of wrongness, made up of many delectable layers of stupid. For a start, there’s that cost. For that kind of money, London could create a whole network of properly protected cycle lanes on its streets;”

So basically the idea here is avoid taking lane RE away from motor vehicles?

[Greenbelt]

Sounds like a privately funded effort, to be paid for by tolls. I’d like to see an interior cycleway built from Baltimore to DC using the median of the BW Parkway and with flyover connections at BWI, Laurel, Greenbelt, Riverdale Park, and connections to the Anacostia Trib trails etc.. Would be expensive. User fees for bikes and walkers (50 cents?, $1?) could maybe help defray the cost? Would be a game changer for bike commuting from the eastern parts of DC. The idea of a floating cycleway may seem crazy out there for this generation of infrastructure improvements, since there is so much other cheap low hanging fruit, but 30 or 40 years from now, with sea levels rising a foot or more, it might make sense to think about this for the Anacostia River Trail in parts, and also the Mt Vernon Trail in VA.

[mstone]

@Greenbelt 96648 wrote:

Sounds like a privately funded effort, to be paid for by tolls.[/quote]

Uh-huh. Let’s make the numbers easy, say $1bn @$2/trip. How long does it take to generate 500 million bike trips? And it’s in the water. Nothing in the water is cheap to maintain. (See the colloquial definition of “boat”: “a hole in the water into which one pours money”.) I’d be surprised if the tolls could get to the point of breaking even on the maintenance, let alone the capital. Maybe I’m wrong and it’ll get built, but I would be truly amazed to see it happen. More likely this is cheap advertising for the design firm.

Quote:

I’d like to see an interior cycleway built from Baltimore to DC using the median of the BW Parkway and with flyover connections at BWI, Laurel, Greenbelt, Riverdale Park, and connections to the Anacostia Trib trails etc.. Would be expensive. User fees for bikes and walkers (50 cents?, $1?) could maybe help defray the cost? Would be a game changer for bike commuting from the eastern parts of DC.

That sort of trail would be much, much cheaper. I’d go so far as to say tolls are a non-starter (the collection and enforcement would cost a bunch, and I’m skeptical that they’d make money) but it would be doable to just build it if there were a political will to create new infrastructure.

[lordofthemark]

There is nothing wrong with goofy visionary infrastructure ideas financed with private money. UNLESS they are presented as alternatives to (arguably) needed public infrastructure investments using (more or less) proven technology. See Hyperloop vs California High Speed Rail. The Citylab article gave the impression that this was somewhat like that, but maybe that is not the case.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 96663 wrote:

There is nothing wrong with goofy visionary infrastructure ideas financed with private money

Does such a thing actually exist? What was the last major infrastructure project that didn’t come looking for public support? I actually can’t think of any off the top of my head (include eminent domain, tax incentives, loan guarantees, monopoly rights, etc.) even going back hundreds of years.

[Author]

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