So, I guess travel by jetpacks and tubes is being put on the backburner, but in the meantime this outstanding amazingness will do.

SkyCycle is a proposed 135-mile network of three-story high bike paths that would be built above existing rail lines and accessed by over 200 ramps in an effort to relieve London’s ridiculous traffic congestion.

They hope to build 10 routes over the next 20 years, the first being a four mile stretch from east London to Liverpool Street Station costing about $363 million.

If that sounds like a ridiculous amount of money for a bike path, keep in mind that alternative traffic congestion solutions like new roads or tunnels would be fantastically more expensive.

The 20-foot wide paths would reportedly handle up to 12,000 cyclists per hour and would cut current street level bike journey times by up to 29 minutes. It will also make cycling significantly safer in a city where car-versus-bike accidents are growing problem. In November alone, six cyclists died in traffic accidents in less than two weeks.

As fun as cycling and enjoying the views of London on an elevated path sounds, there is the small matter of wind gusts while riding up that high, as well as the potentially prohibitive steepness of the ramps required to access SkyCycle, but I’m confident the nerds will figure it all out.

[Via]