Friday 4 March 2011

The worst cycle path in Drenthe revisited

At the end of last year, our local newspaper produced a list of the worst cycle paths in the province.

This news story caused a reaction. A list of 41 plans have been drawn up, of which 38 will be executed. Seven of these plans are on the list produced by the news paper. The province is putting in a million euros and an additional two million are coming from other sources to improve these recreational cycle paths. The problem cycle paths are almost all part of the knooppuntennetwork of recreational routes.

The work to be done includes replacing existing asphalt surfaces, and changing asphalt to concrete. The concrete surfaces, a new one of which is on the left, are especially wonderful to cycle on.

I quite like finding something slightly less smooth sometimes, but actually it is very pleasant to have conditions like this even on paths in the middle of no-where.

Don't forget that we organise cycling holidays here. Going along the "worst cycle path in Drenthe" is optional, but actually it's rather nice already, and now we know it is to be improved.

See a later post about improvements to cycle-paths in Drenthe.

There are several other posts about Drenthe, the "Cycling Province" of the Netherlands, where we live.

Of the 41 plans, 3 stand on a reserve list, and will be taken care of only if one of the others turns out to be problematic at the moment.

3 comments:

Jim Moore said...

Now I know for sure that there is no such place as "The Netherlands" and you've been writing fairy tales all along. Blogging about a a western media outlet campaigning for better cycle paths, recreational ones at that, was one tale too many. I should have twigged earlier that a place with three names (Netherlands, Holland, Low Countries) was a bit too much like Utopia/Paradise/Eden.

How cruel for you to lead us on like this! At least now we know the truth we'll all be a bit happier with our on-road narrow part-time bike lanes and other "crap cycling" facilities, or maybe even go the whole hog and become Vehicular Cylists.

Seriously, excuse my poor attempt at humour. I really appreciate your blog and it is inspiring me to do something about improving cycling facilities in my city here in Australia.

Dr C. said...

I look forward to the day when there are cycles routes provided here which aren't aimed mainly at the recreational user. We seem to have been building this stuff the wrong way round for a long time.

I'll have to ask one of my motorist friends how they would feel if we'd spent public money on a series of F1 and rally driving courses before building the A-road network

kfg said...

Mr Colostomy - Actually, that would work for me. :)

I'd have to put a sturdy enough trailer hitch on the bike to be able to tow the Formula Ford to the "recreational path" though.

That "man bites dog" mental image is amusing me enough that I have to away and have giggle in the corner now.