Where trains used to run, today there are bicycles, people jogging or simply walking to stay active. The Vies Verdes, the footpaths for pedestrians and cyclists that, along more than 200 kilometres, run through 78 municipalities in five counties of Girona, have not stopped growing since the consortium was created in 2003 that deals with the maintenance of these itineraries, which arose from disused railways and which link the Costa Brava and the Pyrenees.
The nine meters located on these trails registered more than 577,000 uses during the first half of this year, 7% more than the same period of the previous year. If this pace is maintained, the 961,000 uses recorded a year ago will be exceeded, a figure equivalent to more than half a million people.
The most frequented section is the 41 kilometers that connect Girona with Sant Feliu de Guíxols, in the heart of the Costa Brava, which brings together 60% of the journeys. Most routes are made between the months of May and June, and especially at weekends, when the families or groups that use these paths are crowded.
The analysis that the Consorci de les Vies Verdes, a body dependent on the Diputació de Girona, makes every semester, shows that during the first quarter of this year, 60% of the journeys made on these paths were made on foot, and 40%, by bicycle. A change in trend that has been reinforced in recent years. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, the majority used these paths to cycle. The manager of the Consortium, Àngel Planas, states that, beyond its tourist role, it is an infrastructure "widely used by the people of the territory and it creates a lot of daily mobility". Planas considers that the product "is a complement" to the road bicycle tourism that has turned Girona and its demarcation into a true mecca for thousands of cycling fans, professionals and amateurs.
An exhibition in Sant Feliu de Guíxols commemorates the 20 years since the creation of the Green Roads Consortium, which also manages the Pirinexus network, a 370 km circular route that connects Catalonia and the south of France. The first requests for cycle routes arrived before the creation of this consortium. In 1979, several organizations demanded that a part of the Carrilet route, the train that connected Girona and Sant Feliu de Guíxols and that had made its last journey ten years earlier, be set aside for bicycles. In 1990 the Mancomunitat del Ripollès approved a proposal to take advantage of the disused railway esplanade between Ripoll and Sant Joan de les Abadesses and in 1993 the Consortium Ruta del Carrilet d'Olot was born, the train linking the capital of La Garrotxa with Girona along 57 kilometers. They were the first three sections created at the end of the nineties. There are currently some in progress, including the connection between Pals and the Masos de Pals, between Garrigàs and Arenys d'Empordà and the link between Bescanó and Sant Gregori. Works valued at 3.2 million euros financed with Next Generation funds.
