Benidorm receives more than 400,000 euros from European funds to create new stretches of bike lanes and join the entire Levante network

Benidorm City Council has obtained a grant of 406,664.61 euros from European funds to develop a project that will create new sections of bike lanes and join the entire Levante network. The mayor, Toni Pérez, has informed that the Official Gazette of the Valencian Community (DOCV) publishes today the resolution of the grant launched by the Generalitat to finance local projects for the promotion of sustainable urban mobility. Based on this resolution, Benidorm has been granted 50% of the cost of the project, which is the maximum marked in the call. The other 50% must be provided by the City Council.

The mayor recalled that the project 'Levante cyclist ring and connecting branches' was approved by the plenary and is based on the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PMUS), approved in turn in June 2016.

Pérez stressed that obtaining this grant "comes to show serious and consistent work based on a city strategy developed by the municipal departments, and a fundamental axis for the management of this government as is mobility."

This project proposes to implement the bike lane in various Levante roads until adding more than 11 kilometers of new sections. In some streets, this implantation will be converted into cycleways. Additionally, the project proposes to install speed reducers and other singular elements -some linked to new technologies- such as totems, cameras, bollards, bike lane guards, signaling routes or milestones.

The implementation of these new sections will make it possible to configure a bicycle lane ring that will extend from the roundabout of the European Community with Europe to the Hermitage of Sanz, through the old N-332, and will link with the section made by the Provincial Council Provincial de Alicante in CV-753 -the road that connects with El Albir. But also, "is going to address the intervention, cleaning and improvement of the two entrances in Benidorm from Altea and l'Alfàs del Pi", which are in turn "fundamental in the daily transits of the region."

According to the details of the project, on Comunidad Valenciana and Admirall Bernat de Sarrià Avenues the bike lane will be installed on the sides of the road, since it will have a cyclopeatonal character, while on Europa Avenue it will run along the center of the road following the model of Alfonso Puchades or Jaime I. In Ametlla del Mar, Doctor Severo Ocho, Estocolmo, Monte Carlo, Rumanía, Marsella and Nápoles will operate the cycle-track model. On the other hand, the speed reducers will be installed on Comunidad Valenciana, Admirall Bernat de Sarrià and Severo Ochoa Avenues.

In addition to the improvement and promotion of sustainable mobility, the project is also a reference to sports tourism, since the implementation of the bike lane is carried out in the area of ​​influence of Serra Gelada Natural Park and some of its most unique elements and iconic as the climb to the Cross, the Tower of Les Caletes and Punta del Cavall.