Recreational cycle routes in Utrecht

In my last post I showed you how ’s-Hertogenbosch has recently renewed and elaborated the city’s system of wayfinding signs for people on bicycles. The city placed 888 signs to 36 destinations. These are all “ordinary” wayfinding signs to towns and villages and other primary destinations. White signs with red letters. But there is also a second system for cyclists. White signs with green letters that everyone in the Netherlands understands to be a recreational route for people on bicycles to destinations like parks, lakes and other green areas for recreation.

Utrecht already had a system of red signposts for cyclists. But the city has just finished setting up such a second system of recreational wayfinding signs. The final sign was bolted to the post by the Municipal executive councillor of Utrecht responsible for the “Environment and Sustainability” but also “Public Space”, “Green and Water” and “Economic Affairs” as well as “Finances”. (She has quite an array of tasks!)

Map of the new recreational cycle routes in Utrecht.

What the city had to say about these new green signs:

To make the green recreational areas in and around the city of Utrecht more known, the routes to them will be signposted with special green cycle wayfinding signs. The signs will not only make the areas more known, but also easier to reach by bicycle. To mark the beginning of spring and the recreational cycling season Municipal executive councillor Mirjam de Rijk will unveil one of the signs.

The city wants to stimulate people to use their bicycles to get to the green recreational areas. Most of those areas are at just 3 to 7 kilometres cycle distance for many people in the city of Utrecht. The signs were financed under the Green-program of the city that runs for several years.

The routes do not always follow the shortest way but take people along attractive and interesting places in the city. With these recreational cycle routes the city wants to increase the accessibility of the areas in and around the city.

Everything is ready for the placing of the final route sign. (Photo by Herbert Tiemens)

Municipal executive councillor Mirjam de Rijk bolts the final sign to the post. (Photo by Herbert Tiemens)

Mission accomplished! (Photo by Herbert Tiemens)

Thanks to Herbert Tiemens for allowing me to use his pictures!

If you would like to know more about the systems of wayfinding for cyclists in the Netherlands there is a very good article written by students of Northeastern University in Boston.