Bicycle routes
Bike paths on unused railroads – “Rails to Trails”
La formula treno+bici Flag

Galleria fotografica
Galleria immagini
Levada di Piombino Dese (PD): the former station of Levada along the Treviso-Ostiglia railroad.

After the second world war, especially during the 1950’s and 1960’s, many local railroads, mostly running on a single track, were decommissioned and “abandoned to the winds of time” pushed out by the automobile boom and under pressure from the automotive-gasoline lobby (or to put it another way, the growing dictatorship of the automobile).

Starting during the 1980’s and 1990’s the idea began to spread to use these abandoned rights-of-way to develop bike trails. Bike paths built in this manner have become increasingly prevalent. I have singled out the following bike paths in Italy that I know from personal experience:



References and links

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This site is hosted by spazio web di Paolo Bonavoglia

English translation by courtesy of Richard Bosch, Architect, Portland, OR.

Translation is work in progress. A few pages are still in Italian.

Original text and photos are by Paolo Bonavoglia (E-Mail: paolo.bonavoglia@aruba.it) and may be used freely but only for non-commercial purposes and with an explicit and visible link to this site.

The logo picture was taken in Vicenza, in front of Palladio's Villa la Rotonda in 2011.

The adjective Rudolfian refers to the fact that this railroad was realized in 1870 by the Kaiserlich-königliche privilegierte Kronprinz Rudolf-Bahn Gesellschaft the railway firm of Austria Crown Prince Rudolf of Habsburg, the son of Emperor Franz Josef. X
Federazione Italiana Amici della Bicicletta [the Italian Federation of Friends of the Bicycle] X