More money for cycling in Assen

The latest news from our local government contained this piece. Last Thursday they voted to give an extra €975000 for cycling with the aim of further increasing the level of cycling.

A road which still has a tiled cycle path from a couple of decades ago is to move over to smooth asphalt, and another rougher path is to be surfaced better too. There is another €200000 for recreational cycle paths around the city, and as a stimulous to the economy, a cycle path is to be built sooner than was planned along one of the roads outside the city (one of the roads we covered on Sunday's ride). Also €145000 is reserved for safety improvements especially on school routes and around schools and there is to be yet more cycle parking at the train station and at bus stops. There is also to be extra guarded cycle parking at events.

I'd missed this story, but Judy pointed it out to me and so did my local correspondent, Frits, who also said, "Cycling facilities are cheap". He went on to say that this is "Quite a bit cheaper than other roads, and far more effective." Quite right too.

Note that Assen's population is just 65000, so this is an extra 15 euros per person in the city. To get an idea of how significant this is, scale it to the size of your city. e.g. for London with its 8 M population, you'd need the council to decide in one of its meetings to allocate about an extra 110 million pounds. It may sound a lot, but how much are they spending on roads for cars ?