By Martyn Henry
The success of the new river pathway in Nicosia has been quite phenomenal.
Dozens of people, old, young and middle aged can be seen striding, strolling, jogging and otherwise perambulating along it, either in groups or solo.
It makes me wonder where all these people were before.
Were they making do with the pavements, or lack of them, along our roads? Or have they simply decided to take advantage of this excellent facility?
If you live in Limassol, Paphos, Larnaca or elsewhere on the island, indeed if you live anywhere else in Nicosia, forgive me for going on about this highly parochial thing, but it has made me wonder.
If something like this can be such a success here in the capital, why can’t the idea spread?
Proper walkways for cyclists and walkers (separated, preferably) across the island.
They cost far less than a few kilometers of unnecessary extra roads and will benefit many more people.
Those using the one close to my house genuinely seem to enjoy it, although getting some of them to smile and say ‘yiasas’ seems to be a task that Sisyphus might have balked at. Still, maybe eventually.
I really believe that these things could be a huge benefit to Cyprus. Thread them through our forests, along our costs, the centres of your towns. We could even have places where you can stop and get refreshment along them. What a wonderful addition they would be to our landscape.
I promise, yes promise, that this is the last time I will write about this track. For a while anyway. It will be interesting to see how it fares over the months and years when it comes to maintenance and so on.
In the meantime, Twit of the Year Award goes to the driver who tried to get his small car onto the track. Fortunately he was stopped before his stupidity could cause any damage or injury.
I like to think the report is apocryphal.
But it probably isn’t…