The government's bicycle plan

“Hello Olivier Razemon, you are a journalist specializing in transport. You write 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, first because there had already been cycling plans in 2012 and in 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 financed, there are 350 million euros, and it is the first time that a quantified objective which is 9% of bicycle journeys in 2024 while it It's 3% today, so I find that interesting. Obviously, it doesn't go far enough, say the associations, and they are quite right, and then there is this “at-the-same-time-tism” that we know well. That is to say that we are doing at the same time a bicycle plan and then at the same time we are creating highways we continue to promote the car with much more money than we do for the bicycle , with the consequence that it is not a bike versus car battle, but with the consequence that all of this increases the distances traveled, that all of this develops sprawl urban and that all this also aims to ultimately cancel in fact what we are doing for the bike, so that's it, it's one thing, but it's true that it's interesting to have this bike plan . It's interesting especially since a few years ago, about ten years ago, municipalities only swore 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 bikes everywhere that ultimately it necessarily leads you to take them 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 are a lot of of journeys by bicycle, a third of journeys and 20% of journeys sometimes are made by bike. And so, what happens, we have a bicycle system, that is to say we leave from home, we have to be able to park your bike at home, you have to be able to park it securely upon arrival, especially if it is 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 learn everything simply to ride a bike, to get around by bike, we always regularly hear “cyclists do anything”, well maybe a little, sometimes, but also because there is a lack of knowledge, quite simply , cycling skills. And then, there is 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 which are differentiated from those for cars, like we find them in Basel for example in Switzerland, with little red signs which say, in this direction you have the train station and it is so many kilometers away. So, all of this is a bicycle system which is much more complex than simply 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 travel 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 journeys by bicycle. So, that does not mean that tomorrow everyone will do their 5 km by bicycle, no, no one says that, on the other hand, it does mean that there is a huge margin for progress in cycling, and why? Not just for the pleasure of being on a bicycle, because it is pleasant, but also because quite simply we have in France an epidemic of sedentary lifestyle, not only in France, in the Western world. We spend way too much time sitting, we spend too much time in front of screens and that has consequences. I met a cardiologist from the French Federation of Cardiology the other day who told me that the first warnings on the subject of sedentary lifestyles came in 1953, and here we are almost sixty years later, saying to ourselves “hey, maybe we should do something about sedentary lifestyles”. We are all faced with this problem, and the bicycle answers a whole series of societal questions. So it does allow you to exercise, it is not polluting indeed, 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 that was presented to journalists the other day, there was a short 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 will do 2 km, so much the better if they come by bike. For a simple reason, it is that they take up less space, and therefore, as they arrive by bike, ultimately there will be space for other cars, there will also be space for pedestrians, whereas if everyone comes by car, after a while we cannot put all of everyone's cars in the same place at the same time, so that is a question of space and a question of organization of public space. And then, when we're on a bike, when we travel as our main mode of transport, we tend to do our shopping nearby, we tend to favor local businesses which are in great need of them in France 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