Réseau Express Vélo in Toulouse: an association warns of “latecomers” and fears that the Metropolis is creating a “low-end” network
The Express Bike Network, a network of 13 bike “lines” that cross the Toulouse conurbation, is still long overdue. If the Department has launched the consultation and advanced on the studies in the peri-urban part of the project, the association 2 Pieds 2 Roues fears that Toulouse Métropole will offer developments at a “discount”.
Toulouse Métropole, not up to the future Express Bike Network, promised for 2026? This is what fears the association of pedestrians and cyclists 2 Pieds 2 Roues (2000 members). In an open letter to the President of the Metropolis, the association criticizes the weakness of the planned budget, the “delay” taken in relation to the Department’s project, or the lack of legibility of the project and a relative opacity in the discussions undertaken.
“Outside Toulouse Métropole, the Haute-Garonne departmental council took charge of building the network. It has already started the project management studies for 7 lines, i.e. around fifty km (53 M€ budget, i.e. a little over 1 million euros per kilometer) and consultation is already very advanced for these routes whose commissioning is scheduled for 2025″, notes the association.
Lack of communication, insufficient budget according to the association 2 Pieds 2 Roues
On the other hand, itremoved from Toulouse Métropole, adds “2 Feet 2 Wheels”, “ this network was to be fully operational by the end of the mandate in 2026. Approximately 270 km were thus planned for an announced budget of €66 million (i.e. nearly 250000€ per kilometer)”.
“However, Mr. Boyer, after taking over the delegation in the fall of 2021, quickly announced a lowered ambition: half of the planned network will be delivered at the end of his term of office. “.
Nowadays, adds the association, neither 2P2R nor the representatives in the participatory democracy bodies have had new, more precise information on the routes than the Tisséo Collectivités plan. However, we had been told that a skills study would be carried out and then preliminary project studies for 2021, but nothing was communicated.
The association calls for a “broad consultation” which must be held “quickly, before arbitration, in particular on the relevance of the routes”. It also calls for the project to be carried out “line by line”, to avoid maintaining the “discontinuities” of the current network, and a real “qualitative leap” in the realization of the REV. “For example, a cycle lane along parking lots could not be an element of the REV, nor could a mixed greenway in high demand by pedestrians”. To “catch up” with the metropolis, the association asks for a network that is not “low-end”.
Maxime Boyer, vice-president of metropolitan France and deputy mayor of Toulouse, requested by The Midi Dispatch, replies that “the ambition is there, despite what 2 Feet 2 Wheels may say”. For the elected official, the ambition of the Métropole is to develop a quality network.
A budget of “80 million euros, up to 100 million” promises the vice-president of the Metropolis
The budget will not be €66 million for the Réseau Express Vélo, according to the elected official, but “80 million, and up to 100 million by the end of 2026”. To this will be added “10 million euros per year from the budget of the City of Toulouse, earmarked to fight against cycling and pedestrian discontinuities”.
Concerning the “delay” taken compared to the Department, Maxime Boyer answers that the part which is devolved to him is “mainly rural peri-urban even”.
“We don’t want to get into the comparison game. The REV project is launched in its entirety at the level of the Metropolis. It is more than fifteen municipalities. We conducted studies in 2021, and I have been meeting the mayors of the metropolis for several months to submit our proposals to them and improve their resentment.
Regarding the “quality” of the Express Bike Network, the elected official ensures that a “reference guide book, with the models of cycle paths, wide and secure, to be implemented” is put in place by Tisséo, which coordinates the work of REV. For Maxime Boyer, the Grande rue Saint-Michel project with a one-way passage and wider cycle paths, “is part of the REV”, just like part of the avenue Séjourné. “Experiments”, “like the provisional tracks during the Covid confinements”, are under study.
“Announcements and a timetable will be given during 2022. Land acquisitions will certainly be necessary in certain places, with heavy administrative procedures. Certain discontinuities such as the crossings of interchanges are complex files, which will arrive over time, “resulted in the elected official.