- After a month and a half of disruption in Parisian transport, and even if traffic is gradually returning to normal, have you returned to your old habits of mobility? 20 Minutes asked readers this question this week.
- Among the responses, those of Julien, Alexandre, Eric, Lydie or Gabrielle, who recount that they were forced to set off on bikes, scooters or walk during the strike, and that there was no longer any question of come back.
- It is one of the indirect consequences of a transport strike. It pushes us to review our mobility. Which modes of transport benefited the most? And which ones were most appreciated? The 6-t study firm has studied the subject.
"Thank you for the strike". The commentary may surprise you, but it is to this observation that Lydie, Francilienne, who responded to the call for testimony launched by 20 Minutes last Tuesday, arrives. Lydie did not answer for her, but for her son who works Porte de Clichy, 2.5 km from his home, in the Saint-Lazare train station neighborhood. A distance he traveled on foot throughout the month of December. "He lost five pounds," she says.
The experience pleased him. While traffic is gradually returning to normal, for a week and a half, he continues to go to work today, assures Lydie.
"Rediscovering Paris"
Julien also did not put the bike away in the garage, although traffic on line 12 has resumed. "I live in Aubervilliers and I work in the sector of the François-Mitterrand library (13th)," he says at 20 minutes . For a month, I took the "vélib" option. I realized that it was faster and that the course, which runs along several canals, was super nice. He continues today, swallowing 20 km a day. “I am in better physical shape and, above all, I enjoy the landscape. "
Alexandre is equally won over by the "velotaf". He has 9.7 km to travel to get to work, a route he usually made on metro line 9 in 45 minutes. "From the first day of the strike, I used my bicycle, a classic mountain bike," he says. I saved ten minutes on the trip. And ten more minutes, since the end of year celebrations, after ordering Santa Claus an electric bike.
The scooter also made followers. Like Eric, who says he has rediscovered Paris. But also Chris, who wanted to reduce his dependence on public transport and "is no longer motivated today to return to the underground underground." Or “Long Ly” which now intends to favor the electric scooter to go from the 19th arrondissement, where he lives, to Suresnes, where he works. "The journey time is almost constant, between 40 and 45 minutes," he appreciates. Reliability that Gabrielle, block nurse also needs. She too will take the scooter now. "I cannot afford to be late every day, which will happen if I rely on the erroneous daily forecasts of the RATP," lambasted the one who had taken the bus until then.
"A disturbing element that upsets habits"
This is one of the indirect consequences of a transport strike. "On mobility issues, the weight of routine is very important," explains Mathieu Chassignet, mobility engineer at Ademe (Environment and Energy Management Agency) Hauts-de-France. On daily journeys, we all have our transport habits and, if there is not a disturbing or triggering element, we rarely question them. "
A move, the establishment of allowances for soft mobility, a snowy day are some of these triggers (see box), list Mathieu Chassignet. A transport strike can also play this role. As evidenced by the number of cyclists identified at the heart of the strike on the bike paths. On the working week from December 9 to 13, at the height of the disruption, 2.6 times more cyclists were totaled by the 55 counters in Paris than over a similar period, before the start of the movement, AFP said Friday . Or, approximately 190,000 bikes - private or shared (Vélib 'type) - listed on the Paris tarmac, every day worked.
Focus on the day of December 9
The 6-t survey published on Friday also shows this. The design office, specializing in mobility issues, focused on Monday, December 9, a day marked by a major disruption in public transport and 600 km of traffic jam in Ile-de-France between 7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. . For a week, 6-t surveyed a sample of Ile-de-France residents on how they have adapted to these disturbances. And how they lived them.
One thousand sixty-two responses were reviewed. First observation: despite the disruptions, "the majority of workers went to work that Monday," says Léa Wester, project manager at 6-t. This is the case for 72% of those questioned, while 12% opted for teleworking, and the remaining 16% did not work. "
Unsurprisingly, it was the regular users of public transport who had to review their mode of transport the most. Within the group surveyed, the modal share of public transport fell from 52% usually to 31% on December 9. Among those who did not take public transportation on Monday, when they usually took it, "17% opted for walking and 11% for the personal car," notes Léa Wester. These are the two modes that have benefited the most from the modal shift. They were "only" 6% to refer to carpooling and 4% on the bike.
Is trying to ride a bike means adopting it?
What to put into perspective the idea that soft mobility - and especially the bicycle - would be the big winners of this strike against the pension reform? "Our study only covers one day," says Léa Wester. Above all, 6-t looked at the results drawn from their experiences by those who had tested a new mode of transport for the first time on December 9. Among those who have tested the bicycle, 59% say that they could have to reuse this mode for a home-work trip, largely at the top of the classification on this component. 35% say they are ready to repeat the experience for carpooling, 22% for walking… and only 14% for the personal car.
Mathieu Chassignet then spoke of the effect "trying it is adopting it", which benefits cycling in particular. "We have seen it several times at Ademe," he says. Particularly within companies that have ended the bicycle kilometer allowance after having tested it. On average, half of the employees who started cycling keep this mode of transport, even when the allowance ends. Same observation with the challenges of mobility that Ademe organizes each year, over a day or a week, depending on the region. The idea is to encourage, over this period of time, to change transport habits on daily journeys. And those who have opted for the bicycle more easily keep this mode of travel once the challenge is over. "
A strike with limited effects?
Will this strike have the same effect? "It would take a second study to answer it," says Léa Wester. But if there are impacts, they will necessarily be limited. If only because this strike mainly disrupted Ile-de-France, where most of the train journeys are made, recalls Olivier Razemon, journalist specializing in transport, on his blog "Interconnection is no longer insured ”, hosted on Lemonde.fr.
And even in the capital region, this strike did not affect everyone. “I live in the Seine-et-Marne countryside, illustrates Cyrille, who answered our call for testimonies. There is no public transport near my home. The car is therefore the only means available to cover the 35 kilometers that separate me from my work. This is another lesson from the 6-t study. The residents of the inner suburbs were the most affected by the disturbances on December 9. They lost almost thirty minutes, on average, over their usual journey time. Against twenty minutes for Paris residents and residents of the Grande Couronne.
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Reverse city toll: What if motorists were paid to drop their cars?
If a transport strike can trigger the sustainable adoption of new mobilities, there are more pleasant ways to encourage city dwellers to question their everyday mobilities. This is the case, for example, of the reverse urban toll, a device already implemented for several years by several cities in the Netherlands, including Rotterdam, to unclog the roads. The idea is no longer to tax motorists who continue to take their car on home-work journeys, but to pay those who agree to leave at staggered hours, in order to smooth peak hours, even those who simply leave their car in the garage to telecommute or adopt soft mobility. "The remuneration lasts only a time, the bet being that the time of the experience is sufficient to convince the participant to adopt the new habits tested durably, specifies Mathieu Chassignet, at Ademe. This is the case, on average, for half of the volunteers, one year after the experience. "
Several French metropolises are showing interest, in particular the European Metropolis of Lille. But the project has been skating for several years. In France, it faces a regulatory obstacle: that of the collection of personal data to ensure that the compensated participants play the game of soft mobility. "Unfortunately, the mobility orientation law (LOM) [voted on December 19] did not create a more favorable framework for reverse urban tolls," says Mathieu Chassignet.
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