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The report, Out of Thin Air ( download here), says there is the potential to provide all the new homes London needs if existing engineering techniques were used to construct apartment blocks directly above rail, Overground and Underground lines.

Research from the report identified all rail tracks in Transport for London's (TfL) fare zones 1-6 where there were no breaks in the track made by tunnels, roads or bridges and where there was ten metres of available land on both sides. This would allow for the development of 100m² apartments in buildings rising to 12 storeys. If a conservative 10% of this total was delivered it would provide 250,969 new homes.

The London boroughs of Brent, Ealing and Croydon and TfL Zones 2, 3 and 4 provided the most 'overbuild' development potential.

Rail lines with development potential

Number of hectares available by borough

Bill Price, WSP director, said: "We have to be more creative in using existing space in what remains a relatively low-rise city. The air rights above rail tracks present an unrealised but significant opportunity to build more new homes on brownfield land. It's important to emphasise the engineering is absolutely possible and not new. We have been working on projects of this nature in New York for decades. Right now in London we are working on a variety of projects that rise above rail lines including a 50-storey residential tower, homes above a new Crossrail station and even a Premier League stadium."

"There is a wider point about how we can better connect communities and unlock new homes not just above rail lines but adjacent to them as well. In some parts of London rail lines act as accidental segregators. By 'decking' over these lines, such as the proposed regeneration west of Earls Court underground station, we can join together sites to unlock an even higher number of new homes and create new vibrant communities."

The thinking behind the report emerged after Network Rail appointed WSP in 2012 to study the feasibility of building above rail lines. The study's conclusions, which focused on the type of decking and noise and vibration issues are detailed in the new report. CGI designs are also provided of what rail overbuild might look like if implemented near a major rail terminal in Central London, above a rail line in West London, and above a station in North London.

Out of Thin Air follows a previous WSP report, Building Our Way Out of a Crisis, which argued that up to 630,000 new homes in London could be found by building apartments above public buildings such as hospitals and schools.
ENDS For media enquiries please contact tom.hawkins@wsp.com / 020 7314 4585
WSP is one of the world's leading engineering professional services consulting firms. We are dedicated to our local communities and propelled by international brainpower. We are technical experts and strategic advisors including engineers, technicians, scientists, architects, planners, surveyors and environmental specialists, as well as other design, program and construction management professionals. We design lasting solutions in the Property & Buildings, Transportation & Infrastructure, Environment, Industry, Resources (including Mining and Oil & Gas) and Power & Energy sectors as well as project delivery and strategic consulting services.

With 7,150 talented people in the UK and more than 37,000 globally, we engineer projects that will help societies grow for lifetimes to come. WSP has been involved in many high profile UK projects including the Shard, Crossrail, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Manchester Metrolink, M1 Smart Motorway, the re-development of London Bridge Station, and the London Olympic & Paralympic Route Network. www.wsp.com/uk

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How can building above rail lines help solve London's housing shortage?

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The report, Out of Thin Air ( download here), says there is the potential to provide all the new homes London needs if existing engineering techniques were used to construct apartment blocks directly above rail, Overground and Underground lines.

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Out of Thin Air WSP

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0:00 / 0:30•Watch full video

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This web log is dedicated to the Hovenring, one of the most talked about cycle bridges by design office ipv Delft. The Hovenring was commissioned by the Dutch city of Eindhoven. This suspended circular cycle bridge with its 70-metre high pylon is a new landmark for the city.

Follow @ipvDelft

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This web log is dedicated to the Hovenring, one of the most talked about cycle bridges by design office ipv Delft. The Hovenring was commissioned by the Dutch city of Eindhoven. This suspended circular cycle bridge with its 70-metre high pylon is a new landmark for the city. http://youtu.be/LwyV9o5ILF0 http://youtu.be/yDCJziBu9HQ

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Visit the High Line | Friends of the High Line

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The High Line is open daily from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM, plan your visit here.

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A magical, green walk along Paris's Promenade Plantée

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At times 10 metres above street level, this free, scenic three-mile stroll from the Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes was the world's first elevated park walkway - and has become a cherished part of the city

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Design Engagement

During the design phase, the Camden Highline Team, Street Space, Field Operations and vPPR have worked together to devise and deliver a comprehensive programme of engagement to involve local people in the development of the Camden Highline. Together, we've harnessed a range of methods to hear the thoughts, ideas and ambitions of different people, perspectives and places.

Methodology

With an already high profile and hugely visible support from local groups, organisations, businesses and residents Street Space's engagement approach aimed to involve those who hadn't yet been as included in conversations about the Camden Highline. In particular, residents on the Maiden Lane and Agar Grove estates. The methodology included the recruitment of a local young producer, Chloe, to create a locally based team, embedded within the neighbouring estates, who was supported to co-lead the engagement process.

Together, the engagement team developed a radically accessible and inclusive programme of engagement to directly enrich and bring the benefit of wider participation into the emerging and collaborative design process of the Camden Highline.

We can't do it without you. Building a park in the real world means consistent pressure at the right places. We know where to apply it, but we need your voices behind us. Join the Camden Highliners and help us make it happen!

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Transforming the disused railway between Camden Town and King's Cross into a new green artery for London.

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ORDER CLIMATE OF HOPE

In their new book, Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope offer a new approach to tackling the challenge of climate change.

TAKE ACTION

Help spread the word and help tackle climate change by sharing the book on social media:

"We need an optimistic conversation about climate change - with hope, not fear."

"Each part of the problem of climate change has a solution that can make our society healthier and stronger."

"We are writing this book because we believe that it's time for a new type of conversation about climate change."

-Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope, former executive director of the Sierra Club

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

In their new book, Climate of Hope, Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope provide readers with a wonderful, in-depth analysis of how municipalities, businesses and private citizens are proving to be a bold force in solving the greatest challenge of our time - the climate crisis. This book gives readers the opportunity to benefit from the wisdom of two highly successful individuals who have taken distinct paths to ensuring that their own communities and organizations have a tangible impact in securing our sustainable future. Climate of Hope is an inspiring must read for anyone who wants to know how their local actions can have positive and significant impacts on the world."

Al Gore

Meeting our world's growing energy demands will require contributions from science, business and government. As Climate of Hope shows, Michael Bloomberg has a unique understanding of the importance of this collaborative approach. Michael's leadership and optimism remind us that by working together, we can develop break-through innovations to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of clean energy technology."

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Climate change threatens to reshape the future of our world's population centers. Bloomberg and Pope have been leaders on fortifying our cities against this threat, and their book proves that victory is possible―and imperative."

Leonardo DiCaprio

Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope, in their new book, Climate of Hope, make a powerful argument that we need a new conversation to ensure we save the planet from global warming. It is a necessary look at the threat and an urgent call for all of us to act immediately at the local level. They bring knowledge, experience and passion to a subject that demands our attention."

Charlie Rose, anchor and executive editor of Charlie Rose, co-anchor of CBS This Morning, and correspondent on 60 Minutes

Thanks in no small part to Michael Bloomberg, mayors around the world are proving day after day that cities can tackle climate change. There are three things we need to do: act, act and act again. This is the first book that explains how."

Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris

Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope show that cities demonstrate how a bottom-up approach to climate action is not only possible, but also necessary―and how all of us have a role to play."

Carol Browner, former EPA Administrator & White House Climate Advisor

Climate of Hope couldn't be more timely - or more necessary. Its optimistic and can-do spirit is exactly what made a global agreement possible. Now, Bloomberg and Pope provide a roadmap for making it a success."

Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary, UNFCCC

ABOUT THE BOOK

The 2016 election left many people who are concerned about the environment fearful that progress on climate change would come screeching to a halt. But not Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope.

Bloomberg, an entrepreneur and former mayor of New York City, and Pope, a lifelong environmental leader, approach climate change from different perspectives, yet they arrive at similar conclusions. Without agreeing on every point, they share a belief that cities, businesses, and citizens can lead - and win - the battle against climate change, no matter which way the political winds in Washington may shift.

In Climate of Hope, Bloomberg and Pope offer an optimistic look at the challenge of climate change, the solutions they believe hold the greatest promise, and the practical steps that are necessary to achieve them. Writing from their experiences, and sharing their own stories from government, business, and advocacy, Bloomberg and Pope provide a road map for tackling the most complicated challenge the world has ever faced. Along the way, they turn the common line of thinking about climate change on its head: from top down to bottom up, from partisan to pragmatic, from costs to benefits, from tomorrow to today, and from fear to hope.

Bloomberg and Pope explore climate change solutions that will make the world healthier and more prosperous. They aim to begin a new type of conversation on the issue that will spur bolder action by cities, businesses, and citizens - and even, someday, by Washington.
Listen to the preface as read by Michael Bloomberg.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP, a global media and financial services company. He served as mayor of New York City from 2002-2013, earning a reputation for independence and innovation. In 2014, the UN Secretary-General appointed him Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, and he leads the boards of numerous climate-related organizations. He is one of the world's most prominent philanthropists, and the environment is one of the five main focus areas of his foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies. Learn more about Bloomberg's environment work on MikeBloomberg.com.

@MikeBloomberg
Mike Bloomberg
@MikeBloomberg

Carl Pope

A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Carl Pope is the former executive director and chairman of the Sierra Club. He is now the principal advisor at Inside Straight Strategies, focusing on the links between sustainability and economic development, and serves as a senior climate advisor to Bloomberg. He was a founder of the BlueGreen Alliance and America Votes and has served on the boards of the California League of Conservation Voters and the National Clean Air Coalition. The author of three books, he writes regularly for Bloomberg View and Huffington Post.
@CarlPope

For updates on Climate of Hope, sign up to receive Mike's newsletter.

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Climate of Hope by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope

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In their new book, Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope offer a new approach to tackling the challenge of climate change. Help spread the word and help tackle climate change by sharing the book on social media: "We need an optimistic conversation about climate change - with hope, not fear."

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There's something wonderful about research that puts a whoopee cushion on the seat of conventional wisdom. This week a study by the universities of Oxford and Hong Kong suggested that people in built-up urban areas are happier and healthier than people living the good life in the suburbs. Can this be true?

It seems absurd. Everyone knows, because we have been told so often that the inner cities teem with desperate, exhausted people who have nowhere else to go, surviving in crowds, stress, dirt and the endless, cacophonous demands of consumerism, eyes for ever downcast in fear that some witless bumpkin might misadvisedly hazard a breezy "good morning".

We have been told so often that the inner cities teem with desperate, exhausted people

Cities, we are told, are the product of pitiless revolution - agrarian and industrial - uprooting humans from their bucolic landscapes and driving them into the pitiless, insatiable maw of a demonic machine for shattering hopes, dreams and nerves.

If the residents of the burbs are less happy than those still in the process of being macerated, it can only be, surely, because they've tried the city and it has already broken them quite, quite irreparably. Or maybe they're just older.

But apparently not. People fare better in the city not least, researchers claim, because in the city people walk more. This seems counter-intuitive, but I think it's true. In the country, a walk tends to be an actual thing, done entirely for its own sake, as a specific activity, with time set aside for it. It can be a quite a production. There's the debate, before even a single step, about where the car should be parked. Sometimes, by necessity, there are two cars involved, one for drop-off and one for pick-up. Who needs all that stress?

In the city, by contrast, one walks to get to places, sometimes quite quickly. (Bizarrely, this is often because the traffic is too bad to bother with such things as cars. Out-of-towners, probably.) In the capital, one sometimes even walks a long way underground, at those connecting stations with two lines some significant distance from each other. Often, in the city, one even walks to one's walk. I have two big parks near me, and I tend to walk to both of them. I indulge in a different kind of walk when I get there.

In the city, there is so much to walk to; art fairs, outdoor screenings of much-loved films, new areas to explore, demos. You can go on a demo every day of the week. These tend to involve a good deal of walking and hanging out with like-minded pals. That's a sobering thought. We city dwellers would be a good deal less healthy and happy if we didn't have such large numbers of things to protest against.

Are the woods dotted with reprobates because they're empty? Or are they empty because they're dotted with reprobates?

By contrast, there are places where this route to health seems unavailable because virtually no one walks at all. My home town was one. You'd say you're popping out for a pint of milk, and everyone else would rise to say: "I'll drive you!" A verbal tussle would then ensue, over the circumnavigation of 1,400 yards.

Not far from the housing estate where I grew up, near Glasgow, there's a wood, through which the river Clyde runs. It's beautiful, one of my favourite places. But it's always empty, except for people training their fighting dogs or getting really drunk. It's all a bit chicken and egg. Are the woods dotted with reprobates because they're empty? Or are these woods empty because they're dotted with reprobates? Certainly it was there that I first learned a downside of low-density living, the female millstone of unwanted attention from random creeps. (Never let anyone persuade you otherwise; the invisibility of middle age is awesome.)

City planners will be excited by the news that piling everyone into high-density housing can now be seen as a kindly deed. They can have fat profits and a high horse at the same time. Still, in the capital at least, there is a paradox. Isn't it astonishing that London is one of the less densely populated cities in the world, yet still manages to be a place where young people, whether healthy or not, despair of ever finding anywhere decent to live.

* Deborah Orr is a Guardian columnist

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Value your health: head for the inner city, and swerve the 'burbs | Deborah Orr

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There's something wonderful about research that puts a whoopee cushion on the seat of conventional wisdom. This week a study by the universities of Oxford and Hong Kong suggested that people in built-up urban areas are happier and healthier than people living the good life in the suburbs. Can this be true?

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The longest elevated bike path in the world has been opened in the Chinese city of Xiamen.

Dubbed "the winding viaduct" by Chinese news agency Xinhau, the route is predicted to spur a cycling infrastructure revolution across the country.

Standing at five miles long and 16 feet wide, large sections of the route sit underneath an elevated motor vehicle expressway offering shelter from the elements for the 2,023 cyclists the route can carry per hour.

The route is set to be open from 6.30am to 10.30pm during an initial month-long trial period, and individuals who are without bicycles can hire one of 300 hire bikes along the route.

Alongside cycle hire stations the route will feature bike servicing pavilions and plenty of bicycle parking for privately owned bicycles.

The route's resemblance to the widely praised Danish Bicycle Snake cycle route that carries cyclists across Copenhagen's harbour is no surprise. The architecture firm responsible for "the winding viaduct" is Copenhagen-based firm Dissing + Weitling, known for the creation of landmark bridges and, of course, the Bicycle Snake.

One of the largest differences between the Copenhagen bridge and the Chinese "viaduct," other than the distance covered, is how long the two projects took to complete. Copenhagen's Bicycle Snake was bogged down in disputes for eight years before it was completed, while the elevated route in Xiamen took less than a year to go from planning to completion.
>Read more: New cycling bridge takes Copenhagen cyclists across city's harbour
The route itself is said to cover the city's five major residential areas and three business centres. There are 11 entrances onto the path which connect to 11 bus stops and two underground rail stations. 30,000 lights will also illuminate the path when night falls, and automated gates will help control flow if the route exceeds its capacity.

Local residents are already praising the project, one resident told Xinhau news agency that he had to put his fears aside to try the cycle route, but he's glad he did.

"I'm a little bit afraid of the height, so I thought I would dare not ride on it. But today I found the guardrail made me feel safe," Wu Xueying told Xinhau.

"It's nice to ride a bicycle under the blue sky in the sunshine."

While others have been pleased with the efficiency of the route.

Chen Yimen, another local resident, told Xinhau: "I tried today, and it took 10 minutes from my home to my workplace, which is the same as when I was driving."

If Boris Johnson and famous British architect Lord Norman Foster had their way back in 2013, we might not be looking at a five-mile stretch of elevated cycle path in a south-eastern Chinese city for the world record.

A collaboration with Network Rail was proposed by Lord Foster back in 2013 to create 135 miles of elevated cycle routes above the city's railways.

The plans included ten routes and 209 access ramps at a height of three storey building, and were predicted to adopt the name "SkyCycle".
>Read more: Boris Johnson shoots down "fantastically expensive" SkyCycle plan

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Longest elevated cycle path in the world opens in China

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The longest elevated bike path in the world has been opened in the Chinese city of Xiamen. Dubbed "the winding viaduct" by Chinese news agency Xinhau , the route is predicted to spur a cycling infrastructure revolution across the country.

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EM2N - Projects - Refurbishment Viaduct Arches, Zurich, Switzerland

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The viaduct is more than just a bridge. Like a mountain chain erected by human hand it appears in the town with a scale derived from the landscape and topography. The infrastructure element, originally used as a railway line, had to be formed in a linear park that will be part of a culture, work and leisure mile.

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The Norman Foster Foundation promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future.

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The science of human behaviour for cities, urban places & buildings

Space Syntax provides expertise in urban planning, transport, building design, social interaction and spatial economics.

Our creative approach combines global experience with an original technology that forecasts the impacts of planning, transport, economic and design decisions on people and property for all scales of development. Operating for more than 25 years, we are:

committed
...to improving the economic, social and environmental performance of the built environment

trusted
...by a distinguished client base of forward-thinking public, private and community organisations

expert
...in modelling the impacts of planning, transport, economic and design decisions on human behaviour patterns.

Science-based and human-focused, Space Syntax brings creative, innovative rigour to the process of making cities, urban places and buildings.

"I know that these techniques work from the tough environment of practice. I love the world of analysis, observation, of research, but also passion, imprecision, the hunch. Space Syntax is the testing of the interaction of these opposing worlds."

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Space Syntax | science-based : human-focused

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The science of human behaviour for cities, urban places & buildings Space Syntax provides expertise in urban planning, transport, building design, social interaction and spatial economics. Our creative approach combines global experience with an original technology that forecasts the impacts of planning, transport, economic and design decisions on people and property for all scales of development.