As it comes to urban cycling, we think about it in terms of moving within the same city most of the time. In addition, we use bikes to visit our beloved park, forest or beach by pedaling few kilometers outside the place we live in. However, cycling is also a good idea in order to transport yourself to a close city or village in which you work, study or go shopping. By the way, remember using panniers if you guess you can carry weight in your trip.
It is believed that such closed cities means one big city attracts people from commuter towns due to the fact of job opportunities, amusement, culture, hospitals, does it ring a bell? And yes, this is true in a lot of cases, but not in every one. A biker can move in opposite direction from city A to village B just because she wants to visit her relatives, enjoy excellent cuisine or discover a bike route that a friend of hers told her yesterday. Thus, the flow of cyclist goes in both ways. Such a reason explains why having and maintaining bike lines which connect two cities, two villages and one city with one village is so important.
To my mind, the aforementioned bike lines should fulfill some points:
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They should have a physical separation between them and the other lines, even between them and pedestrian lines
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They should run parallel to the car lines when possible since these were built in order to optimize move time
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If the previous point can not be meet, bike lines should run through natural, maybe previously abandoned lines with a second life
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They should avoid unnecessary curves and elevation changes
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They should be marked with signals and banners so that nobody gets lost