BalbKubrox
@felixcat:
14 December 2009 10:52AMI suspect that the cycle track in the original report is similar to the ones beside the Liverpool- Preston road, or other thirties arterial roads.
Yes, up until the early 1950s new roads usually had cycle paths built alongside them: then it all stopped because (presumably) more and more people had cars and it was believed that bicycles would eventually go the way of the horse. In the early 1960s I lived in the village of Caerwent in Monmouthshire, right out in the middle of nowhere, and for a mile or so each side of it along the busy A48 there was a handsome, wide concrete cycleway. Why? Because at the start of WW2 the government built a large factory nearby to make cordite for the Royal Navy, and they had to include some way for the cordite-makers to get to work from the estates that were built nearby for them to live in. The factory closed in the 1960s, but from the satellite photos (I haven't been back there for years) the cycle track appears to be still in place: presumably very ill-maintained nowadays.
