Crowdfunding underway for a floating cycle highway on the Thames

A crowdfunding campaign has been launched to harness the “huge transportation capacity” of London’s Thames River to create a floating cycle highway running through the heart of the congested city.The team behind the Thames Deckway – a 7-mile (11km) stretch of cycle path that would float alongside the banks of London’s famed river – are aiming to raise £175,000 (€245,000, US$264,000) on IndieGogo to pay for a feasibility study to reinforce the business case for the project.Thames Deckway is a concept proposed by River Cycleway Consortium, which is led by architect David Nixon and environmental entrepreneur Anna Hill, in conjunction with Arup and David Broughton Architects. Running from Battersea to Canary Wharf, the waterside cycle path would decrease journey times by up to 30 minutes, the consortium predicted. One of the downsides of the seven miles of floating decking, which would potentially have to carry thousands of commuting cyclists, would be its prohibitive costs. At an estimated £600 million (€755 million, US$955 million), the consortium suggested off-setting the costs by charging cyclists £1.50 (€1.80, US$2.40) per journey. A single Tube journey, by comparison, is currently £4.70 (€5.90, US$7.50).