Despite the deconfinement, Aix and Marseille still chilly on the bike

• The cities of Aix-en-Provence and Marseille quickly erased the temporary cycle paths installed for deconfinement.
• These two cities of Bouches-du-Rhône are experiencing a significant delay in the practice of cycling as a means of transport.

With its kilometers of cycle paths mapped out and immediately erased, the "world after" Covid-19 is very similar to the world before for cyclists from Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, cities always chilly on transport to bike. With its yellow track completed on May 20 on the main avenue du Prado, then erased five days later overnight, Marseille broke the record for the shortest cycle route.

Official explanation from the Marseille-Provence Territory Council: this development "had not found its audience" among Marseille users ... Today, the ambitions displayed for the second city of France, where the bicycle was to be the "deconfinement strategy" », Seem very thin.

"Banal strips of yellow paint"

On May 8, a "first phase" of 9 kilometers "of light and reversible cycling facilities" was announced for 600,000 euros. Six weeks later, only La Canebière, an emblematic street in the center of Marseille, has kept its own cycle path, protected from traffic by studs.

Marseille: a post-containment cycle path dismantled despite protests via @franceinter https://t.co/8LSUsvw9so

As for the other promised installations, they boil down to banal strips of yellow paint, without demarcation with car traffic, which makes them above all additional parking spaces, as on the Boulevard de Paris, to the chagrin of cyclists.

"Not the right timing"

As of May 7, the neighboring city of Aix-en-Provence had inaugurated 13 kilometers of experimental "corona-tracks", a few days before the deconfinement. She quickly backtracked, erasing two out of three circuits on May 21, then all of the remaining tracks after three weeks.

Bd Thurner / cours Lieutaud. Plane trees appeared and a cycle track traced with a square # Marseille pic.twitter.com/eFO5BC3nfA

"Traffic had already resumed and there was no one on the bike paths, (...) it was not the right timing", says the director of communication for the city of Aix-en-Provence, Isabelle Loriant .

The collective "Vélos en ville" and the association Adava Pays d'Aix, which defend the use of bicycles, deplore the lack of consultation and the symbolism of these coaster cycles. "People do not start cycling overnight (...) and this kind of experience hurts everyone", regrets Olivier Domenach, president of Adava.

Red lantern

In a "barometer of cycling cities" published in February by the Federation of bicycle users, Marseille was the red lantern of cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants. Aix-en-Provence ranked 33rd out of 40 for those with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

By way of comparison, Lyon, the third largest city in France, had already laid out more than 30 km of transitory cycle paths in early June, and an additional 30 km should be delivered by July. But there too, two temporary bicycle routes were quickly canceled, accused of causing big traffic jams in the city center.

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• Marseille
• Bike
• Aix en Provence
• Transport
• Deconfinement
• Society