Bicycle path reopens

In spring, the first part of the bicycle path I use most days temporarily closed. Initially, I didn't know why, but I later found out that the local cyclists’ curse was going to be tackled: the six gates that regulate traffic of both bicycles and cattle. I don't think I met a single cyclist who thought that that really requires such a high number of gates. And now it seemed that the council had agreed with that. A tunnel was going to be put underneath the bicycle path, and then the gates could go! And the fact that they wanted to solve the problem with only one tunnel supports the gut feeling that six gates was a bit much. If it only takes one tunnel, could that work not be done by just two gates? But that is not important anymore now.

It was late March when the path closed. The work was supposed to take 12 weeks. It didn't even overrun by much! 14.5 weeks later I got to the point where normally you have to now get onto the road, but I could just keep biking on the refurbished path. And the gates were really gone! It was lovely.

Gate gone! I could keep going

Over the new tunnel

Only the posts left of gates nr 4 and 5

I will enjoy it while it lasts. Because that will only be a short period of time. I spoke with some workers at the site, and they said the parcel would only be open for a month before it would be closed again. The next project that was going to be tackled was: the pedestrian bridge over the river. It's a beautiful old bridge! But maybe so old that its beauty is now trumped by an increasing lack of safety. I think I will miss the old bridge. What we will get instead will probably be a modern monstrosity. But that's how life goes sometimes.

The old bridge. Preparatory work clearly has already started.

I will have a few weeks off blissful bicycle path use until I am forced back onto the road again. I assume it will take a long time to rebuild the bridge. It took forever when they were rebuilding the crumbly old bridges over the river Cegin. That is, by the way, the other end of the same bicycle path. But once that work is done I suppose it will be quiet for a while…