BICLOU, EPISODE 43 - You can see her aerial bun in the distance.
Dimitri Payet pedals like a dancer not far from our camera.
The Olympique de Marseille player is one of the many Marseillais who take advantage of this sunny end of the day to cycle along the corniche, on a cycle path that overlooks the Mediterranean since 2019.
This postcard bidirectional route could almost make you forget the shortcomings of Marseille in terms of cycling.
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Marseille, the red lantern of very large cities for cyclists
According to the 2019 cycling cities barometer of the French Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB), Marseille is still the red lantern of cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants in terms of cycling.
With the worst record, she is 11th out of 11 and has a poor G score, the worst possible.
"If there was a Z note, we would have had it too," quips Cyril Pimentel, coordinator of the Collectif Vélos en Ville, a major association of cyclists in Marseille.
Overall feeling, safety, comfort, parking options, municipal efforts: here, almost all the lights are red.
"It's very dangerous to ride a bike in Marseille"
“The ledge is nice, but afterwards, everything outside is a bit complicated.
There are no cycle paths and sometimes cars are parked on them, ”regrets Bastien, an occasional cyclist.
"It's going well, there is progress, but there is still a lot to do," said Cyril, who pedals every day at work.
"It's very dangerous to cycle in Marseille", laments Christiane, a senior who however "does everything by bike".
"The barometer is based on the feelings of the population, this is the most important, decrypts Cyril Pimentel, of the Vélos en Ville collective, Here, what the barometer measures is that people do not feel at home. at ease ”.
And for good reason, despite a new temporary coronapiste on the Canebière and this panoramic road along the Corniche, the Marseille cycle network is still embryonic.
"Cycling facilities in Marseille are hypocritical"
In the city center, many tracks are laid out on the sidewalk, in the middle of pedestrians, and remain difficult to use, unless you deploy treasures of patience and some subtle tightrope walking skills.
By following several tracks we found ourselves immersed in turn in a garage sale, in front of the counter of a shellfish seller, then in the middle of the Prado market.
“Cycling facilities in Marseille are hypocritical.
We put a sign for you, we tell you to share the space with pedestrians, and during that time, the car has all the space, ”deplores Cyril Pimentel.
To make matters worse, these cycle spaces are often worn out, barely visible, or even transformed into makeshift parking lots by motorists in a hurry.
A discontinuous cycle network without logic
A collaborative map updated very regularly also allows us to glimpse the lack of continuity of the network: long segments disconnected from each other and a few infrastructure appendages that emerge on their own at the corner of the map.
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For lack of a logical overall plan, many infrastructures suddenly stop.
"So suddenly, you take your bike and you disappear", jokes Charlotte Caselles, follower of the daily bike for four years in Marseille.
"It is not thought out, it is done in a hurry", deciphers this photographer and school leader.
On Boulevard Michelet, not far from the Stade Vélodrome, Cyril Pimentel begins to turn in circles, at the end of a track closed by a few forbidden directions and a tide of cars accelerating in the opposite direction.
“I have no choice but to turn around,” he sighs.
Daily friction with motor vehicles
Another major obstacle, in the second most congested city in France, cohabitation with motorized vehicles sometimes turns into a nightmare.
When restarting at a red light, Charlotte Caselles was overtaken by an impatient car, which did not hesitate to press the accelerator vigorously.
"We make the engine roar, we brush against you, all this to tell you that you are not fast enough for them", thundered the thirty-something, "It's typical of Marseille.
Here everything is done for the car ”.
To fight against this motorized violence, she founded Les Déchaîné · e · s, a cyclo-feminist collective fighting to reclaim public space by cycling in an urban environment.
“To make it more enjoyable, we have to make real cycle paths that are consistent, that are not on the sidewalk, and that we value more cycling what!
“Advocates this committed cyclist.
“Stop favoring the car!
"
“We can do wonderful things here.
All it takes is political will.
If we do not limit the space of the car, people will continue to use it ”, supports Cyril Pimentel.
Eight express lines by 2030
"We have a lot of progress to make and we know it", slips Audrey Gatian, deputy for city policy and mobility at the town hall of Marseille.
The new municipality resulting from the union of the lefts and environmentalists is determined to build tracks on the road and separate from traffic.
Except that it does not have the competence to act and must work with an Aix-Marseille metropolis controlled by Les Républicains.
"For the moment, we have a little complicated relations with the metropolis, [which] is rather on a model of painted strips [of cycle paths]", regrets Audrey Gatian.
For its part, the metropolis is concocting a 30 million euro bicycle plan for Marseille.
Eight express lines should be delivered by 2030, with several sections completed by 2024. Except that the project has already taken a lot of delay.
Marseille cyclists will therefore still have to be a little patient to ride in their city more serenely.
Find all the episodes of the Biclou series.