During the health crisis, transitory cycle paths were created in Paris to facilitate circulation in public transport in particular, called “coronapistes”. The town hall has several times announced their sustainability. Assistant to Anne Hidalgo in charge of the transformation of public space, David Belliard unveils at 20 minutes the budget and the timetable for this perpetuation of coronapistes.
The mayor of Paris has announced that it is working on the sustainability of the “coronapistes”, concretely, will they all be perpetuated?
All will be made permanent by the 2024 Olympics. None of the tracks have been removed and will not be removed. They will even be improved. To date, we have created 52 km of temporary tracks [65 kms étaient pourtant promis] with a so-called tactical town planning on very important axes which considerably increase the cycle network. We made these avenues to respond to a health issue: desaturating public transport during the pandemic. It was necessary to provide alternatives in order to be able to travel by bicycle in complete safety. We must not forget that before, on these axes, we cycled in the lanes of buses or in the middle of cars.
Some tracks were considered dangerous by the associations, and in fact we could observe an increase in the number of bicycle accidents during the first confinements. Are there going to be adjustments in this direction?
We want to make a 100% cycling city where even children and frail people can cycle safely. In 2020, the increase in the number of cycling accidents is explained by the sharp increase in the number of cyclists [voir encadré ci-dessous]. In addition, we now have 45% of women who use coronapists [selon une étude du bureau 6T]This is encouraging because infrastructure security is a major obstacle to cycling among women. This prompts us to further improve security. The accidents are partly linked to network mesh breaks. To identify and resolve these problems, we consult all the stakeholders. The important thing for us is to clearly identify, in order to resolve them, the conflicts of use between pedestrians, bicycles, cars, etc.
Does that mean that the aesthetics of the slopes will be improved?
The sustainability will allow us to freeze these tracks with hard materials and when possible, we will take the opportunity to revegetate the axes, as on Avenue de la République. We will say goodbye to the “GBA” [glissière en béton adhérent, des blocs utilisés pour délimiter les pistes] and yellow studs. For example, we will put in place granite boundaries, with rounded shapes. And white signage, and no longer yellow. One point, however, we have always favored safety over aesthetics.
How much will it cost in the end to perpetuate these leads, and when are you going to perpetuate them?
It will cost 80 million euros. It is both a lot and a little: a lot because it is more than half of the bicycle investment of the previous mandate (150 million), and little because that is what a kilometer of highway costs. Starting this summer, the tracks from Quai d’Issy, Pont de la Concorde, Avenue de la République, and the portion of the Saint-Antoine track between Faidherbe and Nation will be made permanent. In the fall we will have, for example, the Place de la Madeleine with the rue Saint-Florentin, the piste des Invalides, the pistes of the avenue de Saint-Ouen, avenue de Clichy-place de Clichy, boulevard Ornano, Gambetta Est, rue de Vaugirard (Montparnasse-Rennes section). The others will be perpetuated during the winter, during 2022 or 2023 [voir la carte ci-dessous].
Environmental protection associations complain that these installations are sometimes done to the detriment of natural spaces. Did you have to cut trees to make these tracks?
No. There may have been cases in the past where we couldn’t do otherwise, but this is very rare. For these perpetuations and for the future, we are not opposing nature and cycling, on the contrary! Instead, we are taking back space on the car to preserve and increase the natural heritage of Paris.
Do you plan to go beyond these perennials by adding new leads? And when?
This perpetuation of coronapistes is in a way the first step in a new cycling plan that I will be wearing at the start of the school year. There, we will announce the creation of new tracks so as to mesh the entire Parisian territory at the end of the mandate.
You have announced that you want to limit the speed to 30 km / h from the end of August. Are you going to put in place more controls to enforce this obligation?
We will not accept uncivil behavior that puts the lives of pedestrians and cyclists in danger. We are working with the police headquarters so that there are stronger controls in terms of speeding, from the start of the school year. There is a matter of behavior, of course. But I trust Parisians. 60% of the Parisian territory is already at 30 km / h and we have since observed a reduction in the average speed in these areas.
Thermal motorized two-wheelers will have to pay for parking from 2022, a measure that aims, as we can imagine, to promote the deployment of electric two-wheelers. Two-wheeler drivers retort that there are not enough charging stations. What are you going to do to fix the problem?
The objective of this measure is first of all to declutter public space by favoring underground parking. In addition, we will create 5,000 additional places for two wheels. Eight thousand four hundred charging stations will be deployed: 2,400 on the surface by the end of the year and 6,000 terminals in the city’s underground car parks by 2024.
The Sébastopol trail, “the most used cycle route in the world”
Among the most frequented Parisian cycle paths, we find in order the Sébastopol track, the one that runs along the Quai d’Austerlitz, and finally that of the Cours la Reine, which runs along the Seine from Concorde to Radio France. On June 9, 2021, the Sébastopol track, which goes from Châtelet to Gare de l’Est, recorded more than 17,200 passages, according to David Belliard. “Which makes it the most used cycle route in the world”, comments the elected representative, for whom “there is a fundamental trend and a real desire of Ile-de-France and Ile-de-France residents to use the bicycle as a means of transport for the daily, the “vélotaf” “.
In Paris, 7% of trips are made by bicycle, against less than 5% before confinement. And 68% of coronapist users use them to go to work, according to the Paris city hall. “We have a level of bicycle riders that continues to grow. And we are only at the beginning of the bicycle explosion, ”says David Belliard.