Rome, here's the longest cycle path

Rome is going to have the world’s longest urban bicycle path. We are talking about the GRAB,  “Grande Raccordo Anulare delle Bici -” (the toll-free ring shaped orbital motorway that encircles Rome), a shared project for the realization of the 44,2 kilometers long pedestrian and bicycle path, developed inside the Eternal City.

The goal is to release the capital from the terrible 55th place in the rank of the most cycling cities in Italy: with the world’s longest urban bicycle path, Rome would runs to become one of the principal attractive sight for the cyclist-tourists’ lovers.

From the Appian way to the Vatican, from the “street art” of Quadraro and Torpignattara, passing through the Circus Maximus, big roman parks and the paths on the Tiber river, Aniene and Almone: the chances for the two-wheels lovers are countless. 

The project’s coordinators, Alberto Fiorillo of Legambiente and Marco Pierfrancesci of VeloLove, have explained: “It is a light and low cost infrastructure, it has an economical and cultural high-value, a great chance for a new kind of tourism, from the bike-travelers to the urban trekking lovers. The path is almost always flat, it runs on pedestrian and cycle paths, through parks and along rivers (31,9 kilometers, 72,2% of the track). Others 3,6 kilometers (8,1 %) are developed on sidewalks that can easily become a cycling path”.

The 80,3% of the GRAB path is already prepared and ready to be safely cycled. Others 6,8 kilometers (15,4%) are on back roads with very low traffic flow. Only 1,900 meters are heavily congested. Once connected together these long segments, already easily accessible by bikers, the capital and the Country will have a great green corridor.

According to a first valuation of the costs, elaborated on the design of the current path, a basic version of the path will cost 500,000 euro, whereas for a cycle path with an high touristic content  the estimated cost is between 2 and 4 million of euro. Later on, other more important interventions will be evaluated, for example the realization of a pedestrian and cycling underpass, in order to avoid the crossing of the expressway (via Palmiro Togliatti) and connect the GRAB to the existing cycle track in the middle of the roadway.

The GRAB connects to existing cycle tracks (Tiber’s cycle track) or pedestrian and cycling paths in parks and villas, this makes the total length of the possible itineraries 200 kilometers. In the future it can be extended and it can become e network of paths, encouraging people to use the bike more often. Currently the GRAB, in less than an hour and almost without meeting any cars, takes who ride a bike from the suburbs to the center, from east to west (from Montesacro to the Tiber Island for example) or from north to south (from Salaria to Piramide).

The GRAB could also give the chance to physically connect some suburbs, where the bike’s junction could pave the way for the emergence of cycle-tourism services or to valorize among the foreign tourists too the “street art” experiences spontaneously arisen in some neighborhoods.