Cities: Skylines Bike Lanes (How To Get Them & Are They Worth It?)

Cyclists riding on elevated bike path in Cities: Skylines

Bike paths and roads with bike lanes are an often-overlooked feature from the After Dark DLC.

Although cyclists can use the regular sidewalks and pedestrian paths that come with the vanilla game, they can travel much faster on dedicated bike lanes and paths. This shortens the cyclists’ travel time, making it a much more attractive mode of travel. Your citizens are willing to bike very long distances to their destination.

And since these bike paths and road types aren’t expensive, they’re a worthwhile option for encouraging your citizens to bike, thereby reducing the volume of cars on your roads.

Pair these paths and bike-friendly roads with the Encourage Biking policy (which doesn’t cost anything), and you’ll have more bikes and fewer cars driving through your city.

Building Bike Paths

You’ll find bike paths in the Paths tab of the Landscaping menu, alongside the regular pedestrian paths.

The Landscaping menu is unlocked at the Tiny Town population milestone.

The bicycle path from the Paths tab of the Landscaping menu. / Cities: Skylines
The bicycle path from the Paths tab of the Landscaping menu.

You build bike paths in the same way you would your pedestrian paths: by clicking at the starting point and then at the end point, to build a line in between them.

The ends of the bike paths will automatically connect to any sidewalks they are built close to, enabling cyclists to ride from the sidewalks onto them and vice versa.

Bike paths can also be elevated or made into tunnels. This is a great way to use them, as this can allow cyclists to bypass multiple road intersections, cutting their travel time even shorter.

Cyclists are happy to use this elevated bike path that crosses a large road. / Cities: Skylines
Cyclists are happy to use this elevated bike path that crosses a large road.

Road Types with Bicycle Lanes

Apart from the standalone bicycle paths, After Dark also provides several road types with dedicated bike lanes. These are unlocked at the Busy Town population milestone.

The three road types with bike lanes. / Cities: Skylines
The three road types with bike lanes.

They cost the same as the regular roads of the same size, so it’s definitely worth putting them in place.

In the build menu, roads with bike lanes are indicated by strips of pale green, outlined with white, along the sides.

An intersection of streets that have bicycle lanes. / Cities: Skylines
An intersection of streets that have bicycle lanes.
Road Type Build Cost Upkeep cost
Two-Lane Road with Bicycle Lanes 40/cell 0.32/cell
Four-Lane Road with Bicycle Lanes 60/cell 0.80/cell
Six-Lane Road with Bicycle Lanes 90/cell 0.96/cell

Encourage Biking

To make better use of your dedicated bike paths and roads with bike lanes, it’s a good idea to implement the Encourage Biking Policy. Enacting this policy won’t cost you anything.

You’ll find the Encourage Biking policy under the City Planning tab of the Policies panel. / Cities: Skylines
You’ll find the Encourage Biking policy under the City Planning tab of the Policies panel.

Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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