– Lower Silesia, as one of the first regions in Poland, has approached the issue of cycling routes in such a comprehensive manner. Together with experts and representatives of the cycling tourism community, we are developing a strategy for building a network of cycling routes throughout the region. We have also developed design standards ensuring that newly built routes will be safe, functional and user-friendly, as well as environmentally friendly – says Marshal Cezary Przybylski.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the municipalities of Bolesławiec (urban and rural), Lwówek Śląski, Lubomierz and Jeżów Sudecki, as well as Bolesławiec and Lwówek counties. The subject of the meeting was the section of the Bóbr Valley Route from the boundary of the Jelenia Góra municipality to the boundary with Lubusz Voivodeship. The Lower Silesian Cycle Route is a system of cycling routes that will improve the region’s transport accessibility, integrate local cycling routes and connect them with the Lower Silesian railway network. The project is based on a network of main cycling routes covering the entire region and also connecting with cycling routes on the Czech and German sides. The Cycle Route is being developed on the basis of objective criteria and will provide, among other things, access to tourist attractions and connections with the region’s most important centres. Thanks to public consultations conducted by the voivodeship authorities in recent months, several hundred comments were collected and influenced the project’s final form.
– We hope to implement the Cycle Route project over the next few years in cooperation with the municipalities – explains Tymoteusz Myrda, Member of the Board of Lower Silesian Voivodeship. – These will be tourist, long-distance routes running not only through our region, but also through neighbouring voivodeships, and connecting with routes in Germany and the Czech Republic. I am convinced that this project will bring benefits by making Lower Silesia’s attractions more accessible, allowing more people to visit them and thereby support our regional tourism – he adds.
The Lower Silesian Cycle Route project is the result of planning work carried out over the past four years. In 2017, the Board of Lower Silesian Voivodeship adopted the Lower Silesian Cycling Policy, whose primary objective is to increase the share of cycling in transport within the voivodeship. A year later, a letter of intent was signed concerning Blue Velo – a cycling route along the Oder, running beside the river from the Czech border to the Baltic Sea. The document was signed during the Metropolitan Cycling Forum organised, among others, by the Marshal’s Office and the Institute of Territorial Development. The Blue Velo route follows the model of long-distance cycling routes running along river valleys, such as the Elbe Cycle Route and the path along the Danube. Thanks to strong tourist traffic, such routes are an important factor in the socio-economic development of the areas through which they run, bringing them tangible economic benefits.