You’ll soon have even more excuses to take your bike for a spin…

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, approved a number of transport-related projects during a visit to the RTA last week.

Chief among them, was the announcement that we will be seeing an additional 500km of bicycle track across various roads around the emirate by as soon as 2021. For reference, Sheikh Zayed Road totals 558.4km in length – so that equals to a whole load of bike lanes.

While no specifics have been revealed on which roads will be getting the cycle path upgrades, state news agency WAM issued a report saying that the lanes are part of the UAE’s continued efforts to reduce the country’s carbon footprint and curb its reliance on cars.

In the video below you can see His Highness touring the RTA offices :

We believe that this latest development will be on top of the 105km of track that Nakheel invested Dhs150 million in building earlier this year, bringing the overall total track length to a whopping 605km. The Nakheel tracks are scheduled to be completed by Q2 2019.

During the visit, Sheikh Mohammed also greenlit several other projects including the refurbishing of five key metro stations (Burj Khalifa, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai Internet City, DAMAC and Emirates Exchange) to handle the increase in passenger footfall (the whole metro system now accommodates upwards of 650,000 passengers on a daily basis!), as well as plans to provide an additional 3,000 taxis and 750 green buses in preparation for Expo 2020.

We’ll be sure to update this story once we have specifics on where the cycle tracks will be located.

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Images: Supplied, Getty