- The municipal elections are held on March 15 and 22, 2020. Each week, 20 Minutes tackles a theme of the campaign. Today, soft mobility.
- Montpellier is at the bottom of the peloton in the national ranking produced by FUB cyclists.
- In a beautiful unanimity, the majority of the candidates claim more room for cycling in the city and offer solutions to facilitate its use.
- For a year and a half, and an awkward sentence from mayor Philippe Saurel, cyclists have massively invited themselves into the countryside.
“Building an infrastructure so that it can be used by two people may not be ideal. The sentence pronounced on October 20, 2018 by Philippe Saurel, mayor (DVG) of Montpellier, started a new movement around the bicycle. In response, the #jesuisundesdeux movement was born on Twitter. A week later, at the call of Vélocité, there were between 1,200 and 1,500 cyclists to meet…
Since then, the mayor has practiced a spectacular coaster, with an announced budget of 80 million euros over ten years, the multiplication of parking lots and the installation of the first "turn right". But, overall, Montpellier has been playing on it for decades, no matter the political label of the councilors in power. The members of the FUB (French Federation of Bicycle Users) rank the city at the back of the pack (9th out of 11) in municipalities with more than 200,000 inhabitants.
100 million on the table
Not surprisingly, it is on the left that we find the most fervent defenders of cyclists. EELV and Coralie Mantion want to make Montpellier "the cycling paradise" by developing an "express bicycle network with 300 km of cycle paths". It proposes to devote a budget of 100 million euros to bicycles on the mandate. It is the same amount that Clothilde Ollier (dissident EELV) wants to unlock. In addition to "a continuous network of cycle routes", it promises "the creation of secure car parks around major facilities, as well as a long-term rental program for all types of bikes".
One hundred million euros, too, for Michaël Delafosse (PS), a long-time convert to cycling. It is one of the 6.2% of Montpellier residents who use it as a daily means of transport (according to INSEE). He wanted to create a central cycle path on avenue de Toulouse. An axis where the car is queen. "I do not have the courage to say" we will put 100 million euros for bikes ", when we do not know where we are", seems to answer him Olaf Rokvam (RN), who "will carry out a audit before taking action ”. But he warns against "the stigmatization of motorists".
Double direction, parking, cycle paths…
While Jean-Louis Roumégas (another dissident EELV) aims “20% of trips by bicycle”, Thierry Teulade (Montpellier ecology) evokes the security “of all the cycle lanes in cycle lanes” (with low walls in place of the painting on the ground) and the "staggered green lights for cyclists" a few seconds before motorists. Alenka Doulain (Nous Sommes) promotes "the implementation of the two-way bicycle in 30 zones and the improvement of parking lots".
Patrick Vignal (LREM) offers assistance with the purchase of an electric bicycle and Mohed Altrad wishes to "give each child a bicycle". But it is as usual the humorist Rémy Gaillard who has the most daring proposals. He proposes to "coat portions of phosphors to light them up at night with solar energy", "to develop floors of parking spaces dedicated to bicycles" and "sponsor 200,000 bikes with a major brand".
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