London Through a Looking Glass: The Lido Line
With London commuters being asked to find alternatives to public transport for most of 2020, here is an idea that might have just been a few years ahead of its time. In 2012, Y/N Studios proposed inserting a clean channel into the Regent’s Canal between Little Venice and Limehouse Basin, creating a swimmable commuting route.
The channel’s treated water would be contained by a three-layer membrane, allowing commuters to swim safely alongside the boats and waterfowl in the significantly less clean “regular” canal waters. Stations (of a kind) would punctuate the route, providing changing areas and lockers, and larger pools could be created in basins for recreational or competitive swimming. There were even proposals of installing disco lighting in the 900-metre-long Islington tunnel, and freezing over the whole route in winter to create a high-speed skating link.
This was all, of course, purely speculative, and had several major points that were not fully thought out: how much would it cost to build and operate? How much use would it see? Would commuters need to have dry clothes waiting for them at their destination? Most importantly, would it appear on the Tube Map?
It is worth noting, therefore, that this idea was the runner-up in the ‘High Line for London Green Infrastructure Ideas Competition’, which sought proposals for how to create a London equivalent to New York’s High Line, a stretch of disused railway converted into a public park. No funding or planning permission was ever associated with the competition, but who knows what the future holds?
All images copyright Y/N
