We had to choose 12 [overgrown bike paths] just as a good round number, I reckon there’s probably 15 to 20 that you could probably make into really decent routes today.”

Exactly how many more bike lanes lie dormant under grass verges is unknown, but by comparing various accounts, Reid has concluded that around 500 miles (805km) of bicycle tracks were built. So far, he has found 190 miles (306km), partly by checking satellite imagery on 1930s-era roads, and partly by delving into newspaper records and highways meeting minutes. One road at a time, he is uncovering this network of cycle tracks.

This is super cool!! I hope they uncover all of them.

This reminds me a lot of Seattle’s old streetcar network from the early 1910s which can still be seen today by a number of oddly wide roads. If your city has strangely wide, gently curving roads, there’s a decent chance it used to be part of an old trolley system. Many of those rails are still there, buried under decades of asphalt and concrete.

Ironically, some are just now beginning to have streetcars again or a mix of protected bike lanes and streetcars (and cars, unfortunately).