- The municipal elections are held on March 15 and 22, 2020. Each Monday, 20 Minutes will address a theme of the campaign. Today, the issue of mobility with a particular focus on the bicycle.
- In Rennes, all the candidates made the safety of cyclists one of their priorities.
- Some also propose to reinforce the deployment of cycle paths and to link them into a network at the scale of the metropolis.
"Brittany, with all its cycling champions, knows something about cycling there". The sentence is signed Franck Darcel, leader of the Rennes Bretagne Europe list for the municipal elections in Rennes. As in all major cities, the place of cycling has indeed become one of the strong themes of the countryside in the Breton capital. The latter has nothing to be ashamed of in this matter. Third in the list of cycling cities established by the French federation of bicycle users (FUB), Rennes has given pride of place to cyclists in recent years by developing secure lanes and improving services, such as parking or long-term rental electric bikes.
Rennes, 3rd on the podium of (large) cycling cities in France 💪👏🚲. More details @Rayons_Action #nerienlacher #velo #vtt #rennes pic.twitter.com/ceNSWu79ld
- Bretagne VTT (@BretagneVTT) February 14, 2020"But more needs to be done," acknowledges Mayor Nathalie Appéré, who will seek a second term in March. One month before the first round, 20 Minutes reviews the proposals made by candidates for the Rennes mayor's chair to encourage and secure the practice of cycling.
Cyclist safety is a priority
The dramatic news of this fall, with two fatal accidents in less than 15 days, unfortunately confirmed it. There is an urgent need to secure bicycle journeys. Reading the programs, it would seem that the candidates have become aware of the problem. All of them make protecting cyclists one of their priorities. This notably involves "securing the routes", according to Enora Le Pape. "There are emergency measures to be taken on the continuity of routes, on the development of crossroads," said the candidate of France rebellious.
With her team, she led a bike action a few days ago to mark on the ground "ten dangerous points" identified in the city. Haunted by cyclists, these black spots will be "fully resolved within three years", if Nathalie Appéré is to be believed. Many of these dangerous places are located at crossroads. The environmental candidate Matthieu Theurier thus proposes to initiate "a safety plan" for these accident-prone areas and "to eliminate the discontinuities of the cycle network", as also suggests the walker Carole Gandon.
A network of cycle paths to circulate in the metropolis
In addition to these improvements, safety also goes to Franck Darcel through the creation of "real cycle paths" linked in a network "to reach all the cities of Greater Rennes by this mode of transport". This express bicycle network already exists in Rennes for nearly 16 kilometers. But Nathalie Appéré wants to increase this figure to 100 kilometers to reach "the municipalities of the second belt".
Matthieu Theurier shares this same ambition and sets himself the horizon 2024 to implement it. Candidate of the right and the center, Charles Compagnon sees even bigger by evoking "150 kilometers of new tracks" to connect the municipalities of the metropolis between them, without these tracks not systematically converging in the city center of Rennes.
In fact, the continuity of cycling routes in the metropolitan area often comes up against the difficulty of acquiring the plots necessary for the creation of secure trails. Often lengthy negotiations with multiple owners.
Bike parking to be reinforced
In the heart of the Breton capital precisely, Carole Gandon offers to experiment "one or more vélorues" as it already exists in Bordeaux, Lille or Strasbourg, cars having prohibition on these axes to overtake the cyclists who are encouraged to ride in the middle of the roadway.
Our dossier on municipal 2020
Some candidates finally mention in their program the issue of parking bicycles in a city that has 950 secure and free spaces in parks and just over 10,000 hoops on the public highway. The candidate Nathalie Appéré thus proposes to "increase the offer", without being more precise. Matthieu Theurier evokes the deployment of a minimum of eight spaces in each street of the city with "an objective of bicycle parking for 15 inhabitants".
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