Should the glass be seen as half empty or half full?
For Seine-Saint-Denis, small notes of optimism emerge from reading the results of the barometer of cycling cities published this Thursday, February 10, by the Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB).
Admittedly, the department retains its place as the worst student in the inner suburbs, according to the cyclists who answered the questionnaire carried out in 2021. Admittedly, the map oscillates between orange and a lot of red, from “unfavorable” to “very unfavorable”.
And it still has large blank areas, that is to say not even informed about the quality of cycling trips, for lack of a sufficient number of responses per municipality (less than 50) in these sectors.
But for the first time, cities are entering the ranking.
It's a sign when territories that are not well known for cycling finally appear in the barometer, even if they are poorly rated.
Drancy, 72,000 inhabitants, thus offers itself a presence, even shy, with stack 50 responses.
"It is in Seine-Saint-Denis that we see the strongest momentum, ahead of Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne," confirms Louis Belenfant, from the Vélo Île-de-France collective.
For the entire 93, there were 5,366 responses, compared to 3,048 during the previous campaign, in 2019. That is 76% more.
Read alsoBarometer of cycling cities in Île-de-France: the efforts of Versailles and Montreuil hailed by cyclists
More than elsewhere in the Paris region, the coronapists that the department marked with large yellow plots, during the deconfinement of May 2020, were driving forces in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Like that of the former N3, which has since been partially converted into a “sustainable temporary” in Pantin, and enriched with Dutch crossroads.
Or the portions of transitional tracks consolidated in Saint-Ouen.
"The shape-memory bollards, which have now been installed, clearly delineate the axes and are reassuring", confirms Vincent-Xavier.
Montreuil leads the way
“There have been significant developments”, approves the cyclist, who had been the victim of a violent fall from his bicycle, with a slight cranial trauma in 2020, on a dangerously laid out track in Saint-Denis.
Aubervilliers, .
This section of cycle path on the former N2 is on its own site but it is narrow and often used by scooters.
The accesses are also often congested.
The departmental coronapists, however, only functioned well when their existence was locally encouraged, as in Saint-Ouen, Pantin and, above all, in Montreuil.
This city of 111,000 inhabitants is also "considered by respondents as the one that has progressed the most in Île-de-France, in two years", according to the FUB.
They are 492 to have taken the trouble to fill the barometer and to have welcomed the effort and the construction of coronapistes, on which had worked in the spring of 2020 Medy Sejai, director at the time of the Public space, in Montreuil.
“Seeing all our empty streets, I thought about the question, drawing inspiration from what was being done abroad,” he explained to us then.
“The approach has accompanied the development of a structuring network”, underlines today François Beix, co-responsible for the Montreuil branch of the Paris en Selle cycling association.
The seven counters installed in the second largest city of Seine-Saint-Denis confirm the entrenchment of cycling with, for example, 1,500 daily passages of bicycles on the track linking Haut to Bas-Montreuil or even 1,400 every day. on the avenue Gabriel-Péri.
Uncontrolled parking problem
"We want to be ambassadors and serve as a training dynamic with other communities", appreciates Olivier Stern, deputy mayor in charge of mobility.
The network, which should reach 20 km, is currently at 16 km, of which 7 km is provisional.
Montreuil's two priorities (whose score is 3.44, i.e. a "moderately favorable") are now the fight against illegal parking on bike lanes and the establishment of cycle path continuity from one city to the other.
And this is where things get complicated because it is not easy to suddenly change the pattern of travel, in suburbs designed for all-road use and polluted by through traffic.
In the summer of 2020, Aude Lagarde, the UDI mayor of Drancy, quickly initiated a petition against the temporary track created by the department on the former N186, which she held responsible for the traffic jams.
Today, the moribund "corona" with shriveled yellow studs have had their day.
“Either these transitional tracks are reinforced (
with posts
), or they are removed if they do not work, indicates Corentin Duprey, vice-president of the departmental council, in charge of mobility.
In all cases, the decision is made with the cities concerned.
We act proactively without dogmatism.
»
Aubervilliers and Bagnolet still picking up
All the difficulty is now to adapt the structuring axes, like what is planned for the ex-N2, between Aubervilliers and Pantin.
In 2022, the department announces delivering 20 additional km of cycle paths and starting work on 16 km.
The ex-186 around which many cities are classified in red will also be the subject of close work with the communities for an upgrade within three to five years.
Among the “very unfavorable” mentions, Villemomble stands out with the worst score in Seine-Saint-Denis with a 1.98 awarded by cyclists.
Aubervilliers (nearly 89,000 inhabitants) confirms its disastrous reality (with a 2.06).
Bagnolet, too.
"I'm the first to be sorry.
Yes, we are late but we are working on the subject, ”recognizes Jean-Michel Bluteau (DVD), mayor of Villemomble since June 2020. The elected official announces that he has launched a traffic study on the 64 km of roads.
Work on a first cycle path should begin in June, in a common street with Rosny.
