The government's bicycle plan

“Hello Olivier Razemon, you are a journalist specializing in transport. You have a blog on the Le Monde website entitled “Interconnection is no longer ensured”. You have published several books such as The power of the pedal, or, How France killed its cities. First of all, your point of view on this plan that has been unveiled.

– So, I find it very interesting for several reasons, firstly because there had already been bicycle plans in 2012 and 2014 under Sarkozy then under Hollande, just before the end of Sarkozy's mandate in 2011 I believe , but this is the first time that it has been funded, there is 350 million euros, and this is the first time that a quantified objective which is 9% of bicycle journeys in 2024 while this It's 3% today, so I find that interesting. Obviously, it doesn't go far enough say the associations, and they're quite right, and then there's this “at the same time-ism” that we know well. That is to say that we make at the same time, at the same time a bicycle plan and then at the same time we make highways we continue to promote the car with much more money than we do for the bicycle , with the consequence that it's not a bicycle versus car battle, but with the consequence all the same that all that increases the distances covered, that all that develops urban sprawl and that all that also has the vocation of finally canceling out this we do for cycling, so that's it, that's one thing, but it's true that it's interesting to have this cycling plan. It's interesting, especially since a few years ago, about ten years ago, the municipalities swore only by Vélib or the equivalent i.e. the Bicloo in Nantes on Vcub in Bordeaux. We had the impression that it was the alpha and the omega and that it was supposed to transform and put people in the saddle and we realize today, we realized as we went along, we it was already said but the governments were not necessarily always aware of it, that ultimately cycling is much more complex than that.

Doubts about the viability of bike sharing

- Why ? Why first of all about bike sharing since there are indeed more and more doubts today, not only about the possibility of having a service that works, but even about the usefulness and viability of the service? ?

– This service is extremely expensive for the community, it's between 2000 and 4000 euros per bike and per year, so per bike and per year between 2000 and 4000 euros, so it's very very expensive. For the user, it is not very expensive but on the other hand for the community it is expensive. This cost includes vandalism, which we know well, it also includes costs, in exchange for this system there are advertising revenues that no longer reach the city. This is a calculation that was made by Frédéric Errant, who is an economist, who made this calculation for Lyon, for Paris, for Nantes, etc. And then, moreover, it's not because you have municipal bicycles everywhere that in the end it necessarily leads you to take it more often. It is necessary, when we think about a bicycle system as it exists in northern Italy for example, because we always take the Dutch example, but in northern Italy or in Austria, or in Switzerland, there are cities where there is a lot of journeys by bicycle, a third of journeys and 20% of journeys are sometimes made by bicycle. And so, what happens, we have a bicycle system, that is to say that we leave home, you have to be able to park your bike at home, you have to be able to park it and in a secure way on arrival especially if it's an electrically assisted bicycle because, obviously, it costs more, you have to be able to possibly be encouraged by your employer, you have to be able to simply learn to ride a bicycle, to get around by bicycle, you always hear regularly “cyclists do anything”, well maybe a little, sometimes, but also because there is a lack of knowledge, quite simply, of how to be on the bike. And then there's another thing, which is to have reliable infrastructure, you have to be able to go from one end to the other and simply see markings, small signs that are different from those for cars, like we find them in Basel for example in Switzerland, with small red signs that say, in this direction you have the station and it is so many kilometers away. So all this is a bicycle system that is much more complex than just a self-service bicycle.

The coexistence between the bike and the car in the city

– This bicycle system, it also relies a lot perhaps first, Olivier Razemon, on the ability to organize coexistence or non-coexistence, moreover, between bicycles and cars in the city. In this regard, what remains to be done in France if you compare this to successful experiences?

– When we look at a city, I take the example of Basel because I went there not very long ago and there too, it is different from Amsterdam and Copenhagen, what is striking is that 'in some places, everyone has their place. There are places where it is clearly the car and some motorized two-wheelers, but there are not many of them, and then in places there are cycle paths which are also routes that you can cover from start to finish, and I insist, which are signposted, you know where you are going. And then in other places there is a sharing, but not everywhere, places where the speed is moderate. In fact, you have to get on a bike to understand it, when you're on a bike you feel security, either when you have your reserved track, or when the other users are not going too fast. If we are overtaken, officially it's 50 km/h, but often it's 60-70 by a noria of
scooters, as it happens in many cities in France more and more, at that time we do not feel safe. If, on the other hand, we are in an environment where we are and where everyone is about 20-25-30 km/h, then things are better. So, in some places, you just have to calm the traffic, reduce the speed, anyway the average speed is the same in a city, it's 15-16 km/h. On the other hand, there are accelerations which are very strong at certain times for cars and for motorized two-wheelers, so you can do it in many places but in other places you have to separate because there they are major axes. So, it depends where you are, and you see, that's what's very interesting, just about everyone knows how to ride a bike. We tend to imagine that to develop the bicycle, it's simple because we know how to ride a bicycle, so it's simple, and in fact when we look at bicycle policy, we realize that it's much more complex, that it's very fine, that you have to be careful. I come back to the Government's bicycle plan, what is interesting is that it takes these different aspects into account. Until now, we were a little in the incantation, a little in the “we will help you”, “the bike is good”, etc. There, we have all the aspects of the chain which are taken into account.

The bike, the only solution to unclog the city?

– So, you, Olivier Razemon, you mainly work on the bike, but there are a certain number of people who still have to be convinced. To what extent can we say that the bicycle is the solution, in any case a solution for transporting individuals in the city? What makes you think that there is the possibility of considerably improving mobility in urban environments?

– So today in journeys between home and work, which are structuring journeys, it is not the majority of journeys that are structuring: 58% of journeys of less than 1 km are made by car. There are about 20 or 30% of journeys on foot but journeys of less than 20 km are 58% by car, if we take journeys of less than 4 km we are at 65% by car. We have 2 to 3% or 5% of bicycle trips. So, that doesn't mean that tomorrow everyone is going to do their 5 km by bike, no, nobody says that, on the other hand, it does mean that there is a huge margin for progress on the bike, and why? Not just for the pleasure of cycling, because it's pleasant, but also because quite simply we have an epidemic of sedentariness in France, not just in France, in the Western world. We spend far too much time sitting down, we spend too much time in front of screens and that has consequences. The other day I met a cardiologist from the French Federation of Cardiology who told me that the first alerts on this subject of sedentary lifestyle arrived in 1953, and here we are almost sixty years later, saying to ourselves “ well, maybe we should do something for the sedentary lifestyle”. This problem, we are all confronted with it, and then the bicycle answers a whole series of societal questions. So it actually allows you to exercise, it is actually not polluting, there is the question of the climate which is behind all that but it is one question among others, there is the question of urban sprawl. In the press kit which was presented to journalists the other day, there was a small paragraph on medium-sized towns, on the attractiveness of towns, and it is obvious that in a town like Chalon-sur-Saône, like Nevers, like Albi, so much the better if there are people who, instead of coming by car every morning to go to work, go 2 km, so much the better if they come by bike. For a simple reason, it is that they occupy less space, and therefore, as they arrive by bicycle, in the end there will be room for other cars, there will also be room for pedestrians, whereas if everyone comes by car, after a while we can't put all of everyone's cars in the same place at the same time, so that's a question of space and a question of organization of public space. And then, when you're on a bike, when you travel by making it your main mode of travel, you tend to do your shopping nearby, you tend to favor local shops which are in great need of it in France today. today.”

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