Welcome to Velotopia.
A new book by Steven Fleming, founder of bike-centric planning consultancy Cycle Space, lays out a utopian city built around bicycles as the main form of transportation. In fact, cars are largely illegal in "Velotopia," a complete streets paradise where the flow of traffic is smooth, development is mixed-use and compact, and millions of people find their daily commutes "fun." An edited excerpt in The Guardian showcases the Dutch planner's wry thought experiment.
"No disciples of Le Corbusier, Harvey Corbett, Robert Moses or Norman Bel Geddes have been to Velotopia," Fleming writes. "That means there are no highways and no racks of car-parking stations. Neither have any disciples of Ebenezer Howard been there to suggest that development be clustered around satellite towns with train connections back to the core."
Traffic lights are replaced by roundabouts. Local rail is replaced by solar-powered carts. A few vehicles remain—garbage trucks, ambulances, and construction equipment, primarily—but "there are never more than a few dozen heavy vehicles moving throughout Velotopia at any one time – not enough to warrant a network of service roads."
FULL STORY: What would the perfect cycling city look like?
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research