How can we further encourage the use of bicycles in the city?

“How to ensure that the bicycle spreads if self-service bicycles are not the solution? We have seen the appearance of free-floating bicycles, I think we are talking about butterfly bicycles in France as opposed to sheep bicycles which are not attached to terminals…?

– About a year ago, there was the arrival of Gobee Bikes, which were green bikes that you can leave anywhere as opposed to bikes that you have to put back on terminals. The bicycles that must be put back on terminals have been deployed in a number of cities, including Toulouse, Lyon, Paris, Dunkirk… This is a system that is widely criticized today, which means that perhaps: bikes that can be left anywhere would be a solution? The self-service bicycle has its relevance, obviously in Bordeaux it works very well, in Lyon too, even if it is expensive, it also has its relevance. But the question that must be asked is not to rely solely on self-service bicycles. So free-floating in some places can be considered. I was the other day in Grenoble, I rented a bike, there is no self-service bike like in Toulouse, Lyon or Paris. We have a system where we rent a bike for one day or two days, we are at the station in a place where we put our bank card, etc. I told them that it's a bit of a shame that you don't have a station in the city center, they told me that in the city center the problem is that it's expensive to put a new station, on the other hand you have the free-floating which can therefore bring these famous Mobike or Pony Bike, etc., which are private solutions. The question that arises when we look at the example of Basel or that of Pavia in Italy or that of Innsbruck in Austria, ultimately there are quite a few self-service bicycles in these cities. People have their bikes, own their bike, they know where to store it, at home. So there is also an element in the bicycle plan, on the fact of being able to organize in new buildings, a bicycle room worthy of the name. We put it at home or we put it more and more in velostations, which are locked places, in which we arrive with a key, nowadays that is to say a piece of plastic that you pass in front of a reader and in which you can hang your bike. Finally, this solution for bicycles has the advantage of occupying little space, the municipal bicycle is something more but it is not necessarily the alpha and the omega. When we look at the cities where it works, we realize that people have their own bike.

Bike theft, a brake on its development

– Theft is a hindrance to the development of cycling today, at least that's what the Government thinks since in the plan that was presented there is a section in this regard.

– This is one of the fears, rightly so, and so that’s why we need to secure it. This is also why you have to ask yourself the question when you buy a bike, you have to ask yourself at least the question of how am I going to park it? So you have to buy a U in fact, it's the only one lock which really works. You also have to ask yourself another question which is: if my bike is stolen tomorrow, what should I do? If we have already started to answer this question, we will probably buy another one, maybe a little cheaper, maybe a little different. It's still not very expensive a bike, so if it's an electrically assisted bicycle, a good electrically assisted bicycle is at least 1500 or even 2000 € euros, then you really have to think about it by saying ok where is am I going to put it where I am, where I am going?

Can the rise of electric bicycles promote the use of bicycles in urban areas?

– Is the appearance of electrically assisted bicycles likely to modify the percentage of people who take the bicycle, is it really a brake, the fact of having a bicycle with which you have to pedal without any help?

– It's not the same object, they are sometimes confused, moreover not very long ago there was this famous bonus for the purchase of an electrically assisted bicycle. It is not exactly the same object, it is indeed heavier, it is more expensive, we pay more attention to it, etc. The electrically assisted bicycle makes it possible to prolong the use of the bicycle both over time, we notice in particular that in the Netherlands, for example, older people continue to cycle longer in their lives, also extended in space, that is to say that it allows when we did 5 km every morning, well I met someone I think it was in Grenoble last week who explained to me that he rode 15 km every morning thanks to the electrically assisted bicycles. So it extends, it does not replace, if we have 2 km to do frankly the electric bike will be useless, unless you really have to go up every morning. But on the other hand, if we have longer journeys, yes it is worth it.

The use of bicycles in intercity transport

– The other question that arises is knowing how, with transport by bicycle, we can operate the link between cities and the suburbs, since this is essentially what is at issue today when we talk about the car in large cities. Can cycling be a solution?

– Of course, the advantage is that you can do a few kilometers without difficulty, you can easily, when you start, do 1-2 km then 3-5 and 6 km quite easily, and therefore in most cities , it is completely enough to cross the city and to go to the municipalities which are right next to it. That's enough to go to go to Mérignac, to Pessac, we do that when we're in Bordeaux, that's enough to go to Cagnes-sur-Mer when we're in Nice. When you are in Île-de-France, it is a little more complicated. No one is claiming that we are going to cross Île-de-France by bike, on the other hand inside Colombes or Aulnay-sous-Bois, to go shopping it could be a means of transport, provided that the infrastructures are there, and the problem is that they are often absent because there are cars on the sidewalk, because there are garbage cans... Cars on the sidewalk, already on foot, c It's complicated, and then there's no development.

– At the level of the agglomerations, Olivier Razemon, are these questions taken up, are they thought about?

– It depends on the cities, there is the Federation of Bicycle Users almost a year ago which did a kind of life-size survey, an online survey with more than 100 responses and in several cities, and we are It can be seen that the cities that have been rated the best by their own inhabitants are, unsurprisingly, the cities of Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Nantes, Grenoble and Angers. These are towns that actually started a cycling policy a very long time ago, in Strasbourg it was in the 000s, in Grenoble it started in the 80s-90s.

– Isn't that partly due to the nature of cities, their geography?

– In part. What's funny is that if we go to Lille, we'll tell you no, but it's not possible, you understand, it's raining here, it's not possible, and in Marseille we'll tell you no, it's too hot. hot. So I'm a little wary of those arguments. Bern in Switzerland is a city where there is a 12% modal share, i.e. journeys made by bicycle. It's not monumental but it's still more than the majority of French cities. Bern is a city where there is a river at the bottom, and it goes up and down constantly, they have simply set up infrastructures. So, yes, it plays, but it's not the only element.

The lack of policy in favor of cycling in Marseille

– You mentioned the name of Marseille and Marseille is, it is said, very badly rated in terms of cycling, why? 

– Very badly rated, even worse than Paris because there has never been a policy, never a reflection. There are a few cycle lanes, they are on the sidewalk, so that means it creates conflicts with pedestrians. This is a very bad idea, because we have taken space from pedestrians instead of taking space from cars. There is no taking into account at all of the verbalizations of behaviors of the illegal parking type, and this is because there is a car culture, because quite simply there has been no policy on this plan for years. There still aren't any, but there are bikes, that's what's funny when you go to Marseille, you see lots of bikes, a lot more than you could imagine and contrary to what 'we imagine, of course, there are places where it goes up or down, but you don't see everyone going up to the Good Mother every day, and there is in fact a large part of the city which is relatively flat, with a few speeds we get by.

Are new means of transport taken into account?

– With the proliferation of new means of transport, I am thinking of the electric scooters which are multiplying today, of these bicycles which are self-service bicycles, are we not ultimately creating another anarchy with a refusal finally to think the city and the modes of mobility for example with public transport?

– In fact, what is striking, I take the example of Basel, but I also saw that in Grenoble in front of the station, there is a ballet of a whole bunch of means of transport, with a lot of flow, that means a lot of people passing by, very few by car, a lot by tram, because there is the tram passing by, quite slowly, but which is very efficient because there are a lot of them and very often. There are buses, and then there are a lot of bicycles, a lot of arches, a kind of organization of the city that you have to think about when you see it from the outside.

– But there are places today where the city is not so well thought out?

There are places where this is the case, in Grenoble it is the case, it is the case in Bordeaux, it is the case in Freiburg also in Germany, it is a little less the case in Milan, this is already no longer the case in Bologna, for example. We have an organization of space, which is thought out, and on top of that, for elected officials, for communities, it's gold because they have a vein there. They don't necessarily have the money, but they have the public space and they can develop it.”

Free transcription of the program: “Bicycle plan: a way to redesign the city?”, Les Matins de France Culture, September 17, 2018
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7pli9FVNK4