One of the world's first bike bridges with underfloor heating has opened in the city of Tuebingen, allowing cyclists to ride across more safely in winter conditions, the city's mayor, Boris Palmer, said, unveiling the steel construction in late July before cycling over it himself.
While heated roads, paths and bridges are not unheard of, and are increasingly being considered in places with heavy traffic and harsh winter conditions, the city's heated bike bridge is a rare sight for cyclists.
In fact, the specialists at the German Cyclists' Club (ADFC) are not aware of any heated bicycle bridge ever having been built before.
Cities across Europe and elsewhere have been rapidly improving their cycling infrastructure, notably with protected bicycle lanes, during a surge in cycling during the pandemic.
However this kind of ice-resistant path is a cut above the rest.
"Heated bridges for cyclists make sense," an ADFC spokesman said. "Road salt cannot eliminate icy roads 100 per cent. It also attacks the bridges."
A further two heated bridges are also set to be built by 2025 as part of what the mayor calls a "super cycle path network" across the city.
"The first cycle bridge marks the beginning of a new era for cycling in Tuebingen," he said, pointing to inspiration from Copenhagen's efforts to make cycling more comfortable than driving a car.
The costs for the first of three planned bridges are about €1.7 million (RM8.5mil), with €22,000 (RM110,000) for the heating elements.
Although the construction of a bridge comes with its own massive carbon footprint, Palmer says this bridge - about 35 metres long and 4 metres wide - is more environmentally friendly than others.
"A bridge like this is a very big CO2 expense. You have to calculate about 500 tonnes of CO2 for the production of this steel bridge. Therefore, the service life is decisive for the CO2 footprint," the environmentalist politician said on Facebook.
Road salt is known to considerably reduce the lifespan of bridges. Defrosting with heating elements, meanwhile, hardly costs any electricity, 70 per cent of which comes from renewable energies in Tuebingen anyway, Palmer said.
With this bridge, he said, the bicycle becomes an "all-season means of transport."
The city administration hopes the bridge will last much longer together with acceptable installation and maintenance costs, and expects that about a quarter of all journeys within the city will be made by bicycle.
