What would the perfect cycling city look like?

If you were building a city for bicycles from scratch, what would you include and leave out? In an edited excerpt from his new book Velotopia, Steven Fleming imagines a pedallers' paradiseVelotopia is as circular as the topography has allowed, for the usual reason that citizens are always clamouring to live near the civic centre. Development has been restricted to level ground and city limits have been restricted to a diameter of 15km. That ensures average commuting distances of less than 7km and average trip times of less than 30 minutes by bike. Continue reading...