BJ's Bicycle-Only Highway to Begin Construction in September
No more crowded subways and congested roads! After a long time waiting, northern Beijing commuters will soon have a more convenient way to get to work in Zhongguancun as construction is set to begin on an exclusive bicycle highway this coming September.
Just as its name implies, the bicycle highway is designed without any traffic lights whatsoever along the entire length of its 6.5-kilometer-long route. Additionally, the road is completely limited to just manual bicycle use only; electric bicyclists and pedestrians are expressly forbidden from the new road.
The six-meter-wide bifurcated road will accommodate two-way, four-lane bicycle traffic that will be restricted to speeds under 20 kilometers per hour. To prevent the road from becoming too congested, the road will only have a total of eight exits and entrances.
READ: New National Guidelines to Restrict Speeds of New Electric Bikes to Under 25km/h
Northern Beijing residents stand to benefit the most from the new commuter expressway. It will stretch downwards and west from Changping to the Zhongguancun downtown core.
The road will start to the east of Huilongguan Station at the intersection of Tongcheng Street and Wenhua Road in Changping and then move west along the green zone on the north side of the Line 13 subway tracks. After crossing the Jing-Zeng Highway, the bicycle highway will intersect with Jingbaotie Road, extend along the Huilong Area Ring Road, then cross Xi'erqi North Road before finally terminating at the intersection of Shangdi West Road and Houchangcun Road in Haidian District.
Seeing that the new road will extend across a highway, it is more than likely that parts of Beijing's newest bike path will be elevated, much like the world's longest elevated bike path over in Xiamen that extends over five miles long (shown above). And if Beijing takes the Xiamen model to heart, we may see other transplanted features such as a gated entryway for bicycles.
READ: Beijing to Improve Over 900km of Bike Lanes, Expand Urban Rail
According to its 13th Five-Year Plan, Beijing aims to build 3,200 kilometers of bike lanes within the city's Third Ring Road by 2020. Meanwhile, city officials unveiled a proposal last year to create a massive city-wide waterfront greenway so large that a person riding a bicycle at 25 kilometers an hour would require 7 hours to complete the entire circuit.
Images: QQ House (wh.house.qq.com), BJ Youth Daily (news.youth.cn), Tuxi.com.cn, Sohu.com
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