Open its shutters and end up with a bike path downstairs. This is the experience that many Parisians and Ile-de-France residents have been able to take in recent days, surprised by the rapid installation of temporary cycle paths, intended to facilitate travel by bicycle as part of the deconfinement. Because, to respect the will of the government to make "the bicycle the little queen of deconfinement" , to use the expression of the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Élisabeth Borne, we must move quickly. Faced with the disaffection of public transport, the public authorities fear asphyxiation of cities by the influx of cars, which would lead to a massive increase in air pollution, an aggravating factor of Covid-19.
A tight schedule
The schedule is therefore tight. The major part of the tracks must be delivered before the summer, in two phases: a first until the end of May, during which all the axes considered to be priority will have to be carried out, often structuring routes of the urban landscape and / or following lines of public transport. Once this phase is completed, a second will run until the end of June. It will then be a question of closing all past promises.
The installation of the new tracks is extremely fast, requiring only two teams: a first ensuring the yellow marking (color for temporary installations on French roads), a second passing the next day to place the plastic posts which will help a better demarcation of the new track. In Seine-Saint-Denis, we chose to move quickly on the sectors not posing any difficulty, so that a maximum of kilometers come out of the ground, and to find in a second time a solution on the black spots of the layout. In Val-de-Marne, we chose to only trace the limitations of the ground tracks, even if it meant placing the plastic posts afterwards. In Paris, some work is done at night to avoid working in traffic.
Normally, it would have taken years from the study phase until the end of the work to achieve the same result. In addition to the technical aspects, political momentum played a major role. "In 10 days, we got more than in 10 years," explains an association manager. Since the announcement of the deconfinement, weekly meetings have been organized under the aegis of the prefect of the Île-de-France region, bringing together representatives of the various state services, large local authorities, as well as various associations. "It is a form of coordination that we have never had before," explains Louis Belefant, director of the Île-de-France Bike Collective. It has made it possible to establish projects which do not stop at the borders of cities and departments, but to set up a real network. ” Certain barriers have fallen, for example at the level of the old national roads, over which the State retained a right of scrutiny despite their retrocession to the departments and until then often blocked projects to adapt to cycling.
Where we are ?
In fact, what are the first leads delivered? In Paris , priority has been given to doubling metro lines 1, 4 and 13. According to Christophe Najdovski, deputy mayor of Paris for Transport and Public Space, work on the first two lines is well advanced and could end within a week. Line 13, known to be overloaded, should be backed up by a cycle path by summer. The elected official adds that the city will not stop there: "The objective is to double as many lines as possible in Paris," he insists. Thus, work for lines 7 and 3 could start very soon, followed by lines 5, 10 and 12. Another priority axis dealt with by the town hall: crossing doors, often a black point in the cycle network. Thus, the tracks at Porte d'Orléans have just been completed, making it possible to continue the route of line 4 to Montrouge.
The cycle paths planned by the town hall of Paris. Paris City Hall.
The departments of the inner suburbs are not to be outdone. The Val-de-Marne very quickly built a first wave of 40 km of tracks, in particular along the metro lines 1 and 7, the RER A, and the tram line 7. The community must then start work to double metro line 8. Then come the RER B, C, D and E.
The cycle paths planned by the department of Val-de-Marne Department of Val-de-Marne.
In Seine-Saint-Denis , the department plans to build 45 km of temporary tracks. The first 35 are to be delivered by mid-June. It was chosen to build in priority tracks in structuring axes of the department, generally 2x2 lanes, by placing the new cycle lane on the right on each side. Seine-Saint-Denis had planned to make all its cycle lanes for the 2024 Olympic Games, which are to be held on its territory. The new temporary tracks fill the gaps in the tracks already built for this purpose, pending their final version.
The cycle paths planned by the Seine-Saint-Denis department. Department of Seine-Saint-Denis.
The Hauts-de-Seine follow the same logic as the other two. The choice was made here to realize bidirectional cycle paths (two-way). They will make it possible to reach, for example, Paris and Versailles (in the Yvelines), via Boulogne, or Vélizy via Issy-les-Moulineaux. A total of 40 kilometers must be covered. A spectacular track now connects Paris to La Défense via Neuilly, a route previously very complicated for cyclists.
The tracks planned in the north of the Hauts-de-Seine department. Department of Hauts-de-Seine.
The tracks planned in the south of the Hauts-de-Seine department. Department of Hauts-de-Seine.
And to all these projects, we should also add the numerous municipal initiatives. One card attempts to bring all of these initiatives together.
Third phase
Once these projects have been completed, we will enter the third phase of trail development. The summer period should be used to take up all the problems encountered during the construction of the tracks, even the mistakes made. Part of what has been achieved is experimental. The temporary nature allows easy modification of what is problematic. The goal: to be ready for the start of the new school year in September which, with the gradual decrease in telework, should be busier than that of May 11.