A sun-powered bicycle path glows in the dark in Poland

Getting around on a bike is both healthy and green. Pedaling around town lets you stay in shape and shed some excess calories, while doing so can also help keep your carbon footprint down.

In the town of Lidzbark Warmiński in the northern part of Poland, biking around has become a bit more environmentally friendly still. A local company has built a prototype bicycle path that absorbs sunrays by day so that it can light up at night, thereby illuminating the way for people on their bicycles.

The surface of the bike path contains a synthetic material called phosphor that can emit fluorescent light for 10 hours in the dark after absorbing sunlight all day long. Granted the path is only 100m long at the moment, but it’s a good start just the same.

“The material we used for the track gives light for over 10 hours. That means the road can radiate throughout the whole night and reaccumulate light the following day,” explains the president of the company that constructed the bike path.

Nor is this the only illuminated bicycle path in Europe. In 2014 a Dutch designer unveiled a bicycle path that came alive in the dark with patterns adopted from the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s celebrated masterpiece The Starry Night. The 1km path, which is near a place where the artist grew up in the province of Noord Brabant, glows with the painter’s trademark dots and swirls in the dark. That feat is thanks to a special paint that relies on solar energy, although illumination itself comes from LED lights embedded in the road’s surface.

Both Holland and Poland are among the most cyclist-friendly countries in Europe. Numerous locals in both nations prefer to commute to school and work on their bicycles, in which pursuit they are aided by a myriad of bicycle paths.