What is the cyclability of your city or those where you usually cycle?
This is the question posed by the Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB) for the third edition of its barometer of cycling cities.
With a record drop: that of the number of contributions received: 277,000, more than 100,000 more than in 2019. And a key result: On the general feeling, 64% of respondents find that the conditions for using a bicycle are bad.
The 38 towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants are the ones that are doing the best, while suburban towns and medium-sized towns appear to lag behind.
General feeling, safety, comfort, effort by the municipality, parking and bicycle services... From September 14 to November 30, the Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB) asked French people used to cycling to assess the cyclability of their city or those where they are used to cycling.
“Count ten minutes of your time,” warned the FUB, which had already produced two first editions of this barometer of cycling cities, in 2017 and 2019.
“We had 117,000 responses in 2017, 175,000 in 2019,” recalls Séraphin Elie, secretary general of the federation.
This third list, of which the FUB unveils the results this Thursday in Tours where it is holding its annual congress, did much better still, with 277,384 responses obtained.
But more than the number of contributions, it is on the diversity of the geographical origins of the participants that Séraphin Elie draws attention.
"With an explosion of participation in small towns and more rural areas," he says.
Conditions for cycling still poor for 64% of respondents
Result: the number of cities ranked in the list increases sharply, knowing that only those for which there have been more than 50 contributions appear.
From 784 in 2019, we go to 1,625 this year.
From the category of large cities to that of towns and villages, passing through medium-sized cities, small towns and those of the suburbs, as the FUB has chosen to classify them.
All are rated out of six and then categorized on a scale that goes from A + (“excellent cycling climate”) to G (“very unfavorable cycling climate”).
In a way then, these 227,000 contributions reflect the change in bicycle gear in recent years, but also make this third barometer a precise photograph of the needs and expectations of bicycle use in France.
On the general feeling, 64% of respondents find that the conditions for cycling are bad, while 47.8% believe that they have remained the same over the past two years, 36.5 believe that they have improved and 15.8% degraded.
Like the first two editions, it is on the issue of making bicycle travel safer that cities obtain the worst marks.
The average is 2.80 and even drops to 2.75 if only the contributions of women are taken into account (46% of the 227,384 respondents).
The big cities “head of the gondola of bicycle development”
Large cities – the 38 municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants – constitute the best rated category of the barometer.
The FUB describes them as “the gondola heads of bicycle development”, “in particular thanks to the progressive commissioning of increasingly qualitative cycling networks and the multiplication of bicycle services”.
Their average ratings are up sharply on the key theme of safety (+8% compared to 2019), but also on the efforts made (+13%) and the general feeling (+4%).
Séraphin Elie does not, however, describe these 38 large cities as a homogeneous group.
“They have all started to act, if only because they have to, he begins.
But if a leading pack emerges [Grenoble (classified B), Strasbourg (B) and Rennes (C) form the podium], others, however, are lagging behind.
A lack of political will in medium-sized cities?
But it is in the medium-sized towns (between 15,000 and 100,000 inhabitants) that there would be the most to do.
These two categories are in any case the lowest rated in the barometer.
“Only services and parking seem to be partially recognized there”, slips the FUB about medium-sized cities, the worst rated category of all, even if cities like La Rochelle (B), Bourg-en-Bresse (C) and Chambéry (C) manage to stand out.
But, overall, this category suffers from a lack of safety (average score of 2.55), and comfort.
“In these medium-sized towns, there is above all a political backwardness, analyzes Séraphin Elie.
They often find it difficult to position themselves between being a small metropolis or a large village.
Very often, however, they are close to the first configuration, insofar as they radiate over a territory and have to deal with problems that large cities have, even if on a smaller scale.
Whether it's car congestion or air pollution.
In short, for the FUB, these medium-sized towns which have not yet done so would do well to adopt a real bicycle policy.
The suburbs in the shadow of their central cities?
Just like suburban towns?
This is the other poorly classified part of this third barometer of cycle cities.
The FUB classifies in this category the municipalities that are part of the area of attraction of a large city.
To the point of being in their shadows?
“That's often the problem, confirms Séraphin Elie.
These municipalities do not always have full control of all the competences of their territory on mobility.
But they are also very often subject to a system dominated by the automobile, in particular because they are separated from their city centers by motorways and commercial activity zones.
This then results in urban cuts, which are not easy to deal with and which make cycling dangerous.
Back to safety,
The FUB nevertheless hopes that the urban municipalities will be pulled upwards by the central cities.
“Often, it is the latter that give the “there” politically, within the agglomeration and then the developments spread to the rest of the territory, remarks Séraphin Elie who cites in particular the Rennes metropolis and its “Réseau express vélo”, 104 km of secure and continuous links which must connect Rennes and the fifteen municipalities of its first ring.
“This network must be completed around 2024”, continues the secretary general of the FUB who therefore hopes that this will result in an increase in the municipalities concerned (which are not already doing so badly) in the next barometer of cycle cities.
Be that as it may, suburban towns do not need to wait for their central towns to develop their own bicycle system, recalls the FUB.
The proof with Saint-Aubin-de-Médoc, ranked A + in the third barometer of cycling cities... when Bordeaux, its city center, is only "D".
Planet
Transport: Has the sustainable mobility package been set up within CAC 40 companies?
Planet
Bike, car, scooter, public transport… Who will be the winners and losers of post-coronavirus mobility?
Securing travel, the main axis to prioritize
In the wake of this barometer of cycling cities and its congress in Tours, the FUB will publish a white paper on February 15, "which will clarify our political positions on cycling and challenge the presidential candidates", specifies Thibault Quéré, responsible for of FUB advocacy.
A strong focus of this document will focus on the issue of securing bicycle travel, the priority that emerges from the 277,000 contributions.
The challenge is not only to align the kilometers of cycle paths for the FUB who likes to take into account the issues of cycling in the overall urban planning of cities.
“This requires secure and continuous developments where they are needed, that is to say along the main roads where traffic is inevitable, explains Séraphin Elie.
But elsewhere, it can go through traffic plans that limit motorized traffic and reduce its speed.
"Motorized traffic is the main cause of the feeling of insecurity", recalls the secretary general of the FUB.
City
Society
Transport
Mobility
Bike
Cyclist
0 comment
0 share
Share on Messenger
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Flipboard
Share on Pinterest
Share on Linkedin
Send by Mail
To safeguard
A fault ?
To print