Germany is currently developing a car-free bicycle highway that will run a total of 62 miles once it is completed. Upon completion, this car-free bicycle highway will be connecting a total of 10 German cities including Hamm, Bochum, and Duisburg while also connecting four universities.
The car-free bicycle highway is being built for reducing the car pollution and will be getting 50,000 cars off the road on a daily basis once it is completed. It looks like any other conventional road featuring passing lanes, overpasses, streetlights, and even underpasses for crossroads. The benefit to bicyclists that will be using the car-free bicycle highway is that there are no buses, cars, or trucks to hamper their journey.
The cyclists will be able to enjoy a clear road only shared by other cyclists for miles and miles. The bikeways and pedestrian paths are kept completely separated from any kind of vehicle lanes. The very first three-mile stretch of the car-free bicycle highway was opened back in 2015. The idea for this highway was conceived back in 2010 when a cultural project ceased the road between Dortmund and Duisburg featuring over three million people who had come out on the road on foot, on bikes, and on skates.
The idea was further strengthened by the affection for electric bikes and e-bike services including the Uber’s new Jump bikes. All of this is aimed at a cleaner environment. Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich are regularly conducting studies that are aimed at coming up with ways of incorporating more cycle-friendliness in order to get a handle on air pollution and traffic.
Germany is not the first country to come up with a plan for cyclists, though. The Netherlands has been working on such projects since 2000 and is expanding its bike highways even now. Denmark also has bikeways around Copenhagen and Norway is also working on a bike road network.