Story · Transport map · about 3 min
How far can you ride away from traffic?
A number on a signpost tells you that a route exists. It says nothing about whether cars will be beside you, or about how long you can stay off the road once you have found a path. The data behind the signs answers both, and the answer is shorter than the length of the network suggests.
19,797 kilometres, on and off road
The signed National Cycle Network runs to 19,797 km across Great Britain and Northern Ireland: National routes, Regional routes and the short Link routes that connect them.
Less than half is actually traffic-free
Only 8,728 km (44% of the network) is a traffic-free path. The rest shares the road with motor traffic, styled here in a different colour, so "on the cycle network" does not always mean away from cars.
5,268 separate pieces
The traffic-free 8,728 km is not one path. Follow each piece until it rejoins the road and there are 5,268 of them: half are shorter than 0.4 km, 64% are under a kilometre, and the longest unbroken run anywhere in the network is 51 km.
And lighting is rarer still
Only about 19% of the network is recorded as fully lit. Surface, quality and lighting are all on the click panel, so you can check before you plan a winter commute along it.
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- What would make a cycle route feel safe to a ten-year-old, and is that in this data?
- Why might a long network still be hard to use for a whole journey?
Try it on the map: Find a National Cycle Network route near you. Is it traffic-free where you would ride it?
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.