starry night bike path

This beautiful project has been making the rounds on the inter webs lately, and it was too sparkly not to share.

In many places, just getting a bike lane put in can be an uphill challenge. So a solar-powered illuminated bike lane seems like heaven.

But that's just what you'll find in Nuenen, the Netherlands, where Studio Roosegaardehas put in a short stretch of path (inspired by Van Gogh's painting Starry Night) that indeed is 'solar powered' and totally beautiful. It opens today, November 13, to the bike-riding and strolling public.

Roosegaard has been featured before at TreeHugger with their Smart Highway and Glowing Lines concepts, and last month a short stretch of road in the Netherlands opened with 'Glowing Lines'. This month Nuenen debuts the glowing bike lane, called the Roosegaard Van Gogh Bike Path. Embedded with twinkling mosaic chips coated with a special paint, the path absorbs light rays in the daytime in order to glow blue-green at night.

In addition to the thousands of embedded stones, the path glows with the aid of LED lights powered by a nearby solar array.

This special path is just a kilometer long, and is not only inspired by but also a tribute to Van Gogh, who lived in Nuenen for two years in 1883 to 1885. The 125th anniversary of Van Gogh's death in 1890 is being celebrated with a number of events and exhibits in the Netherlands next year.

via {tree hugger}