What Would a 'Cycling Utopia' Look Like?

“Flat, dense, permeable, car free.” That’s the profile of the bicycle-friendly city advanced by Stephen Fleming, author of the book Cycle Space, which argues that cities could be improved with bicycle-specific architecture.

Fleming’s vision, which he promotes through his consulting firm, Cycle-Space International, goes way beyond conventional bike advocacy models, most of which point to old European cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam as the cycling gold standard. He would like to see modern cities radically change the way they’re built—to make cycling, rather than driving, the default mode of transport.