100% cycle-friendly Paris, it’s coming soon
The town hall wants “a 100% cycling city” by the end of its mandate and puts an additional 250 million
Construction of new tracks, 100,000 reserved parking spaces … and reduction of road traffic
Paris loves cycling. For several years now, the Capital has been pursuing its actions around its Cycling Plan to promote the practice of cycling and encourage motor vehicle drivers to change their means of locomotion. The municipality has just announced that it wants to go even further through David Belliard, the deputy in charge of transport, who presents new, more ambitious measures.
“Become a 100% cycling city”. This is the goal that has been set in Paris, which intends to give itself the means of its ambitions by depositing no less than 250 million euros on the table.
The vast majority of this budget will be allocated to infrastructure with 180 million intended to create major cycle routes through the city, but also to perpetuate the “coronapistes”, these temporary tracks that appeared during confinements to curb the sudden influx of cyclists. One of the challenges will also be to secure crossroads and gates.
To support this, the town hall announces that it has limited itself to the objective of creating 100,000 secure parking spaces for bicycles, including 40,000 supervised near public transport. It will also be necessary to find available sites and to acquire them. What is not won in advance.
20 million will be used to review urban facilities as part of the beautification of neighborhoods and forty million will be allocated to other tasks such as awareness and training of young people.
But inevitably, more room for the bike, it is less space for cars and motorcycles. Thus, all these changes in cycling infrastructure will come at the expense of road infrastructure. We already knew this with the elimination of half of the city’s parking spots, but things are going further.
There are first of all the new districts which will pass in “zone with limited traffic”, ie where only the residents, the professionals, the deliverers and the public services can circulate (10 million are paid to this project) . If today the majority of streets are two-way for vehicles and one-way cycle paths, the relationship is expected to reverse.
All this, the town hall intends to do by the end of its term of office. See you in five years …