Chinese city starts work on world’s biggest urban cycle network

Chengdu has started the construction of the world’s longest urban cycle lane network with a total length reaching 17,000km.

Work began on Saturday and the city government plans to finish the project in less than a decade, the Chengdu Evening News reported on Monday.

“At present, considering all cities around the world, the Tianfu cycle lane should be the longest,” said Zhang Jing, an architect working on the project.

Tianfu means the country of heaven and is another name for Chengdu, which has a history that dates back more than 2,300 years.

“The cycle lane is not just a lane for bicycles, but carries the ambition of a city to implement the ideology of green development and rebuild the ecological balance for a better environment,” he was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The number of cars in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, stood at more than 4.3 million cars early this year, second only to Beijing in terms of mainland cities.