Bicycle superhighways coming to Norway with $923 million investment in bike-only roads

  • 8 years ago
OSLO, NORWAY — Norway has invested in the development of a network of highways for cyclists.

The country has announced that it will spend 8 billion Norwegian Kroner (US$923 million) on 10 broad, two-lane, cross-country bike tracks in and near Norway’s nine largest cities. The highway will allow longer-distance cyclists to travel with a speed and safety hitherto impossible.

The new paths will create bike commuter links between inner cities and outer suburbs. It will extend the protected cycle network out from urban cores through the commuter belt and into the countryside.

The highway will not be tracks linking cities across hundreds of miles, at least not initially.

In the absence of cars, the highway will allow cyclists to travel up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour, making long-distance travel more realistic.

The bike highway is part of the new National Transit Plan to clean up Norway’s transit pollution. According to the plan, by 2030, 75 percent of the country’s buses and 50 percent of its trucks must be low-emission, while 40 percent of its short-distance ships and ferries (an important means of transit in Norway) must be either low emission or use biofuels.

If the bike highway succeeds, it should take pressure off roads and public transit and help cut Norway’s usage of fossil fuels.

Norway’s vision doesn’t stand alone. In 2014, an elevated bike path was proposed for London by design firm Norman Foster. The futuristic cycle highway was designed as 220 km of car-free routes installed above London's suburban rail network and would accommodate 12,000 cyclists per hour. And Netherlands famous suspended bike path, the Hovenring, conceived in 2008, has become a landmark. The cycle path roundabout in the province of North Brabant is the first of its kind in the world.

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