No one understands a new Spanish bike path with a twisty jumble of lines

The new bike path near the city of Huelva has not yet opened. That will happen in the spring, but the trajectory is already surprising. When cyclists saw carts drawing lines on newly laid asphalt this week, they didn't know what they were seeing.

“I'm dizzy”

Everything was twisted like a collar. In some of the existing footage, you hear cyclists asking road workers if they don't see something going wrong. But the commanders continued patiently, because their orders stated that it had to be that way.

One cyclist then filmed a video as he attempted to follow the lines on the new bike path for the first time. “Can someone explain to me what happened here,” he shouted, shifting from side to side. “I cycled a short distance and I feel dizzy. Is this really intentional, and who is it, the municipality, the company that works here?”

Since the man posted the video, it has spread widely throughout Spain and now beyond.

Local officials who made the decision to build the 33-kilometre bike path were proud of the advance design. They are now being bombarded with phone calls and tough questions, but none of the politicians in charge answered these questions today.

Important

They sent a copy of the plan to the press. They wrote that the bike path is a design inspired by examples elsewhere in Europe of bicycle paths bearing the same type of marking. But wait a minute… The picture next to it doesn't show a bike path, but rather Copenhagen's world-famous Superkilen park.

The wavy lines also have appropriate symbolism, the politicians wrote. According to them, the lines emphasize the freedom of movement enjoyed by cyclists. On a bike, you clear your mind, and you don't have to follow someone else's pace or direction.

Poetic language

The statement concludes with the idea that “random lines have been drawn to show the number of options for routes and flows through the area crossed by the bike path.”

Drivers have not yet been able to convince cyclists with their poetic language. In Copenhagen people are already allowed to ride bicycles in the park with wavy lines, but in Denmark it is 30,000 square metres, so people move slowly.

To what extent?

Quite different from the one and a half meter wide bicycle path in southern Spain which will be widely used by amateur cyclists passing at high speed.

The question is how to proceed. After all, it's already there and has been sitting dry for a few days now. The bill must also be paid “normally.” The whole of Spain now has an opinion via social media and radio shows and it is usually devastating.

However, there seems to be a clear way out. If the Proud Drivers don't do it, there are others who can draw the lines. The bike path passes partly through Doñana National Park, where four different levels of government are responsible. Maybe one of those other governments likes straight lines.