Jean raises his arms to the sky and cries out his anger. Too late. The cyclist who has just burned the fire and failed to overthrow it on the protected passage has already disappeared at the corner of the rue de Rivoli. No doubt his "Stars Wars" t-shirt had given him the strength of incivility. So goes the life of a pedestrian in Paris, forced to clear a path strewn with pitfalls between the flow of traffic, the closed streets or the widened terraces on the sidewalks. While more than 60% of trips in Paris are made… on foot.
Partly transformed into a “coronapist” since the deconfinement, the rue de Rivoli concentrates the problems of cohabitation. "Here, there are too many bikes," annoys Christine, who has come to get some fresh air in the Tuileries garden with her grandson Léo. Walking in Paris has become nonsense and anxious! "" Bikes, scooters, scooters, Parisians are too disrespectful, says Claudie, retired from the neighborhood. I have four sons who have all taken to motorcycles because, according to them, it is the only way to get around Paris normally. "
"I always have my whistle in my pocket"
Serge has found the solution. From Maisons-Alfort (Val-de-Marne) to Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine), his daily journey, he does not hesitate to play the vigilante. "I always have my whistle in my pocket," explains this framework in the audiovisual industry. And I can guarantee you that it deters quite a few cheaters. Anyway, in Paris, nothing is thought to facilitate walking. "
VIDEO. Paris: hard to be a pedestrian, between scooters, works, and priorities not respected
A rather severe finding in view of the efforts made since 2014 by the Paris city hall with a pedestrian plan endowed with 90 million euros. And like several towns in Ile-de-France, the capital has launched urgently into “tactical” town planning operations to adapt the town to the new rules imposed by the state of health emergency.
The municipal post-containment travel plan thus provides for the creation of 50 km of additional cycling coronapistes (on lanes previously dedicated to cars, such as the rue de Rivoli) but also the widening of the sidewalks in some thirty very busy streets. . Like rue du Poteau (18th century), rue des Moines (17th century) or a section of rue de Belleville (20th century).
16 dead pedestrians mown in 2019 in the capital
In her 2020 campaign program, the outgoing mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has set herself the objective of "zero vehicles on the sidewalks", the strengthening of the supervision of new forms of mobility (scooters, bicycles, scooters, etc.) and the exit of '' a Street Code to enforce the rules in a city where 16 pedestrians died of mowing in 2019. “Significant” gestures for the Place aux Pedestrians collective, which recently brought together 60 million pedestrians, Rue de l'énergie and the French Hiking Federation.
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“We would like walking to be treated as well as cycling,” notes Anne Faure, president of Rue de l'énergie. And like cycling, walking is an economic engine because it develops local commerce. And then, pedestrians, it secures a city. "We cut back on the sidewalks because the pedestrian is a simple adjustment variable", deplores Paul Lecroart, urban planner at the Paris Region Institute.
However, after confinement, offering more space to pedestrian flows to comply with the rules of distancing becomes a strategic issue. Especially since, as the town planner reminds us, walking is the first mode of travel in Ile-de-France, with 17.8 million trips per day, against 14.2 million for the car.
“The priority is often to temporarily widen sidewalks that are too narrow using simple, modular, reversible materials (pallets, planting boxes, logs, etc.) by reorganizing or prohibiting parking, as Dublin, Montreuil or Paris, recalls the town planner. Where necessary, cities may also temporarily reserve entire streets for pedestrians. Vancouver and Vienna have done it, Lille is considering it.
VIDEO. Champs-Elysées: the danger of electric scooter rodeos, under laughing gas
And then, deconfinement offers the opportunity to test life-size a programming of crossroads with traffic lights rebalancing the crossing times for the benefit of pedestrians, or even to make possible the diagonal crossings which make it possible to deconcentrate the flows, as we see in Tokyo, Los Angeles or London.
Other experiments are underway in Ile-de-France.Since 2018, Val-de-Marne has been testing a device that is part of the proposals of the Road sharing decree - Action plan for active mobility (Pama). It consists of clearing the immediate surroundings of a pedestrian crossing of any visual obstacle so that pedestrians and motorists can see each other better when crossing.