Antwerp promotes itself as a pocket-size metropolis of
510,000 inhabitants. About a fifth of the historic centre has been
pedestrianised and the city is currently rolling out a program of cycle lanes
and one-way streets inspired by Dutch practices. Belgian cities are seldom easy
to navigate by car, so it makes sense to give priority to walking and cycling
as a means of getting around within the urbanised area. Antwerp is connected to
the rest of the country and even the rest of Europe by several train lines,
some high speed. The city has a web of public transport lines reaching all
corners of the conurbation. The network comprises of bus and tram, both
exploited by De Lijn (literally The
Line). The underground sections of tramlines are knows as pre-metro.
Antwerp also has a bike-hire scheme known as A-Velo
which is similar to the one in Brussels called Villo!, but with slightly
different bikes and different colours. The bikes can be collected from any one
of the 145 bike stations (left) dotted around the city. The trams (middle) run
through the city centre and some of the neighbouring suburbs. The bus (right)
is the more common way of connecting the centre to the outlying areas though.
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