62 Miles of Separated Bike Lanes for Buenos Aires by 2011

Photo: Paul Joseph.

Excellent news for Buenos Aires locals, expats and green travelers that want to know the city. In order to put some order to the chaotic traffic, the government is building 62 miles of bike lanes by 2011, 15 of which should be ready by the end of this year.

As the existing bike lanes have never been respected by cars and buses, the new ones will be physically separated from the streets (why this is extremely important can be seen on the post The case for separated bike lanes).

More details about the plans in the extended.

There are currently some bike lanes in Buenos Aires, but they are placed in recreational places, and the ones placed in big streets are not properly separated from traffic.

At the same time, according to data from the government published by Clarin newspaper, 60% of the trips people have to do in the city are less than three miles, which is a distance easy to cover by bike.

So new and separated bike lanes are just the way to go. And even if those of us who use bikes for commuting have known this for a long time, we celebrate the fact that the government has realized this.

The new lanes will be placed along major streets and will be connecting key destinations in the city. They will have a width of 2.5 to 3 meters, two ways, will be separated by a concrete curb, and will feature proper traffic lights and signals. In fewer words: they might just be proper and useful bike lanes.

Investment for this project is 75 million pesos (about 20 million USD).

Can these new lanes be the previous step to the final implementation of the biking project for Buenos Aires? We'll see.