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A Bike Highway02-01-16 | News

A Bike Highway
Das ist gut!

The Ruhr region of Germany, a heavily populated western central industrial area, proposes to build a 60-mile bicycle highway along unused rail lines. Three miles have been completed.

Germany has opened the first three miles of a bicycle highway. When completed, the highway will run 60 miles, largely along defunct railroad lines in the Ruhr region, and connect 10 western German cities and four universities. The Ruhr has a metro area population of eight and a half million people. Two million of that population will be within a couple kilometers of the bicycle highway when it's completed.

The idea for bicycle highways began in the Netherlands and Denmark. The new 13-foot wide bicycle routes are a smooth and roomy upgrade from the single-lane bike paths common in German cities, routes not always well maintained and that abruptly end.

A Ruhr, Germany development group (RVR) believes that when finished the 60-mile bike highway will take some 50,000 cars off the roads every day. It's a start. There are 8,046 miles of Autobahn in Germany.