> While most cycle path advocates and cynics like to argue over the merits and demerits of the duff ‘red ways’ of Milton Keynes, very few pay any attention to Stevenage. This is odd because Stevenage’s cycleway network was built before the one at Milton Keynes, and was built as an intrinsic and key part of the New Town plan, not an afterthought, as at Milton Keynes. Throughout the 1970s Stevenage was held up as proof that the UK could build a Dutch-style cycle network. An article in New Scientist magazine in 1973 claimed that “Stevenage cycleways and cycle underpasses [are] premiere exhibits…[in a] traffic revolution.”
> While most cycle path advocates and cynics like to argue over the merits and demerits of the duff ‘red ways’ of Milton Keynes, very few pay any attention to Stevenage. This is odd because Stevenage’s cycleway network was built before the one at Milton Keynes, and was built as an intrinsic and key part of the New Town plan, not an afterthought, as at Milton Keynes. Throughout the 1970s Stevenage was held up as proof that the UK could build a Dutch-style cycle network. An article in New Scientist magazine in 1973 claimed that “Stevenage cycleways and cycle underpasses [are] premiere exhibits…[in a] traffic revolution.”