Norway Has a Plan for $1 Billion in Bicycle Highways

Norway is considering a plan to "spend a massive 8 billion Norwegian Kroner ($923 million) creating 10 broad, two-lane, cross-country bike tracks in and near Norway’s nine largest cities," reports Feargus O'Sullivan.

O'Sullivan provides more details about the proposed bicycle highways:

In keeping with the emerging European definition of the term “bike highway” (“super cycleway” in Norwegian), these will not be tracks linking far-flung cities across hundreds of miles, at least not at this initial stage. What the new paths will do is create bike commuter links between inner cities and outer suburbs, extending the protected cycle network out from urban cores through the commuter belt and into the countryside beyond.

The bike highway plans are a component of the country's emissions reductions strategy, but the project will still have to jump through political hoops for approval and overcome substantial geographic obstacles to the casual adoption of biking. O'Sullivan provides a description of all of these realities, as well as an introduction to the country's larger plans for transportation, in the article.

For other examples of European countries building inter-city bike infrastructure, see an article from January about the progress of Germany's "bike autobahn."