Encouraged by more and more residents opting for cycling instead of motor vehicles, Beijing plans to set up 20 bicycle routes in its urban areas and another 20 in its suburbs by 2025.

Na Liang rides along Chang'an Avenue near Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, August 1, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Na Liang)

According to the authority, the routes will feature the city's sightseeing spots as well as its history and culture. Bike stopovers and sightseeing maps will be available along the urban routes, and the routes in the suburbs will let riders take in rural natural sceneries.

By 2025, all roads with widths of 12 meters and over within the city's Fifth Ring Road will have bike lanes, according to the municipal transportation commission.

By 2035, Beijing will also build 396.8 kilometers of waterfront walking and bicycle lanes.

More people in Beijing have been choosing to ride bicycles in the past decade, as the city improved non-motorized roads with a total length of 3,218 kilometers, including providing tree shades to better the riding experience. In 2021, 47.8% of the trips in the city's central areas were made by either walking or riding bicycles, a record high in the past 10 years.

In the first eight months this year, the city's shared bicycles saw a total of 638 million trips made, an increase of 12.9% year on year.