Morlans tunnel | The tunnel of a railway that turned into a bike path

An urban project in Basque Country transformed an obsolete tunnel into a pathway for bikes.

This new pathway runs along a tunnel previously occupied by a railway that connected Bilbao and San Sebastián. The new infrastructure was built in 2009 and connects the Amara and Ibaeta neighbourhoods. In the year of its inauguration, some newspapers remarked that it was one of the longest bicycle infrastructures in the world. The bike path has a length of 2km, while the part that goes through the tunnel is 840m long. The project started when the Basque government decided to change the path of the railway and build a subway train. This part of railway thus became obsolete.
runs along a tunnel previously occupied by a railway that connected Bilbao and San Sebastián. The new infrastructure was built in 2009 and connects the Amara and Ibaeta neighbourhoods. In the year of its inauguration, some newspapers remarked that it was one of the longest bicycle infrastructures in the world. The bike path has a length of 2km, while the part that goes through the tunnel is 840m long. The project started when the Basque government decided to change the path of the railway and build a subway train. This part of railway thus became obsolete.

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The project for rehabilitating the railway track lasted nine years and concluded in 2009. The project became famous when The Guardian included it in a list of the best bike infrastructures in the world. Norwegian experts have become interested in it and went to Basque country to research on the effects of this infrastructure. The project was aimed at promoting the use of the bike amongst the commuters of the area (students of the university and the workers of the factories nearby).