It would be pleaseant to have a cyclepath with a roof and no walls, as they have in Dubai, but a ‘crystal tube’ would have a great advantage: instead of cyclists having to ride into the wind for half the time they would always have the wind behind them. Believe me, that’s better.

Imagine that the tube was all window with a feel more like the London eye….[ http://0.tqn.com/d/golondon/1/0/P/C/-/-/champagneflight.jpg ] but perhaps also with open and semi-open sections as well.

Coronation Drive is an excellent place to ride a bike, walk, jog and rollerblade. There was also a floating walkway which was an extension of this pathway but it got washed away in the floods. [ http://bayjournal.com.au/joomla/images/stories/stock/Brisbane/floating%20boardwalk.jpg ]

It would be great if it was re-instated.

Coronation Drive looks like a great place to ride a bike.
Last weekend I rode my bike from St James’s Park to Kensington Gardens and thought the number of cyclists on this route (a shared path) had risen about tenfold since I last did it. London may yet become a cycle-friendly city.

The cycletube idea should be compared with a light railway, not with street cycling. The nearest I have come to the experience it would provide is when I have ridden my bike in (1) the tube from Waterloo East to Waterloo (2) within some of the tubes at Heathrow airport (3) in the pedestrian tunnel at Greenwich. I was misbehaving on each occasion but felt it had to be done in the interests of research. The fact that the system has not been tried in any European country proves nothing and if the bank run spreads round the Mediterranean from Greece then we may have more countries taking an interest in lower-cost sustainable transport infrastructure!

Cycling tubes are a tactical wiz which have not been followed up in any of the European cities which have promoted good cycling and appears an idea of little strategic importance. The Dutch cycle regularly long distances (e.g. Den Haag to Delft) in my experience and enjoy the bracing conditions.

The idea of cycling in a long tube with little view out of the window and in a hot clammy atmosphere appears unappealing.

Yours

Robert
with the wind in my hair

Cycling policies in Australia are having an impact on the popularity of cycling both with the provision of road space for cycling and dedicated cycle spaces.
[ http://www.bikeqld.org.au/wiki/Coronation_Drive ]

But yes the distinction between journey lengths is an important one.

The question of atmospheric pollution should not be framed as either cycle tubes or clean air.

A distinction needs to be made between short cycle journeys and long cycle journeys. Cycle tubes would be useless in Central London but for the journey from Dartford to London by bike would be much pleasanter on a bike in a cycletube than by bike on the A2. One could do the trip on side roads etc but it would take an unreasonable length of time.

YES! But the sky tubes would require excellent integration with the urban environment. I would not like to see them choking streets, like the L in Chicago. My suggestion is would be to build them in conjunction with railways and trunk roads. They are, in any case, much better suited to long trips than short trips.

The sky cycle network looks like a better investment under polluted air conditions. Perhaps micro studies could identify the areas of greatest concentration of local pollutants and sky tubes could be built for these sections?