It’s a clear sign, despite the rain and the gray weather of recent weeks: the capital’s cycle paths are always full. A visual impression confirmed by the counters of Paris in the Saddlewhich show attendance in March higher than the average observed for a year.
Gradually, the city continues its revolution. And defenders of the pedal can rejoice: this Thursday, a new survey shows that the bicycle is now used more than the car for travel in Paris.
34.5 million trips per day on weekdays
It is the Paris Region Institute (IPR), the regional town planning and environment agency, which published its first mobility survey by GPS (EMG). At the request of a consortium of fourteen public and private partners, including the region, Île-de-France Mobilités, the four departments of the greater suburbs, the city of Paris, the RATP and the SNCF, the IPR had mission to collect data in order to “diversify knowledge of the mobility of Ile-de-France residents a year and a half after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
We first learn that in 2023, on average, 34.5 million trips were recorded per working day in Île-de-France (compared to 29 million on Saturday and 19 million on Sunday), for an average number of 3 .8 trips per person daily.
Work, the primary reason for mobility
Travel time, for all reasons and modes combined, is on average 92 minutes per day during the week (67 minutes on Saturday and 49 minutes on Sunday). Trips mainly justified by work, which represents 39% of trips and 50% of the transport time of a working day, for an average duration of 38 minutes.
If the personal car remains the most used means of transport in the region (34%) ahead of walking (30%) and public transport (26%), it is in particular because of its great preponderance in the outer suburbs. due to longer distances and lower density of public transport.
The bike puts the car in its rear view
In the capital, the role of the car is smaller, since it only represents 4.3% of intramural trips. Which represents significantly less than the share of those done… by bike (11.2%)! An evolution probably due to changes in behavior observed since the end of Covid-19, climate awareness but also probably to city policy, which encourages this mode of transport (cycle paths, purchasing aid) to the detriment of the car (SUV parking prices, reduction of parking spaces, one-way lanes, etc.)
A real good for the use of the bicycle, which represented less than 3% of journeys in Paris in 2010 according to a study by the same Paris Region Institute published in 2019. This progression should not stop. Because if the latest IPR study covers the period from October 2022 to April 2023, according to the Paris town hall counting system, the use of cycle paths has doubled between October 2022 and October 2023.
The inner suburbs have never been so close by bike
A change in use which does not only concern Parisians since bicycles (14%) exceed cars (11.8%) also in exchanges between the capital and the inner suburbs. An even greater gap during the morning rush hour (between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.) with 18.9% of trips by bicycle compared to only 6.6% by car. Those who have to pass through a door in the capital at 8:30 a.m. understand this choice.
Exchanges between Paris and neighboring municipalities could intensify with the Metropolitan Bike Plan of the Greater Paris Metropolis adopted in July 2021. It aims to establish nine lines serving 70 metropolitan municipalities for 215 kilometers of cycle facilities. To date, nearly 60% of these lines are already functional.
The success of “the little queen” is accompanied by a greater variety of modes of transport used by Ile-de-France residents. Previously more accustomed to using public transport, the car, or walking, more and more of them are opting for multimodal transportation: 25% of working people use two different modes of travel every day. the other.