What would the perfect cycling city look like?

Velotopia is as circular as the topography has allowed, for the usual reason that citizens are always clamouring to live near the civic centre.

Housing and cyclists in the green suburb of Vauban, Freiburg, Germany.

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.

The 15km limits define an area of 177 sq km. Development control guidelines are designed to ensure that at least 30,000 people live in every square kilometre, the average density across Manhattan (including the parks).

No disciples of Le Corbusier, Harvey Corbett, Robert Moses or Norman Bel Geddes have been to Velotopia. That means there are no highways and no racks of car-parking stations. Neither have any disciples of Ebenezer Howard been there to suggest that development be clustered around satellite towns with train connections back to the core.

Read a story by Steven Fleming on The Guardian - “What would the perfect cycling city look like?”

Fire fighters down and out at The Battle of Blue Cut goes on

"The battle of Blue Cut" in California.

All the ingredients were there. Dry heat, gusting winds in a mountain pass cloaked in dead grass and drought-shriveled chaparral.

All it needed was a spark. It came at 10:36 Tuesday morning near Kenwood Avenue west of Interstate 15. The Blue Cut fire was born.

“It all aligned. The wind, the fuel and the topography,” said Capt. Howard Deets of the Mill Creek hotshot crew based in the San Bernardino National Forest.  "When that happens there’s nothing you can do about it. You could throw the world’s fire fighting resources at it and it's just going to keep going."

That’s what the Blue Cut did, chewing through 25,626 acres by Wednesday night, forcing mass evacuations and shutting down one of the most heavily used routes through the mountains that form the untamed backdrop to the sprawl of the Los Angeles Basin.

Read The Los Angeles Times story - “'We got our butts kicked,' firefighters say as Blue Cut fire defies containment.”