- The department of Ille-et-Vilaine will devote 50 million euros to bicycle improvements, against six million euros in its previous plan.
- The departmental council wishes to create secure routes to allow residents to make their commuting from home to work in safety.
- A group of associations has just called on the department to ask it to stop plans for new roads.
We have long seen the departments as the main developers of roads. In Ille-et-Vilaine, the departmental council has been carrying out two large-scale projects dedicated to the automobile for twenty years. While the four-way connecting Rennes to Angers and Redon are about to be completed, the department has chosen to put the package on a new means of transport: the bicycle. Meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in assembly, the Breton elected officials will examine the "2025 mobility plan" carried by the left. In addition to rethinking all of its future developments, the plan includes an ambitious section dedicated to cycle lanes.
Called Ut'Ille (admire the pun), this network is presented as "secure and autonomous" by the elected representatives of the majority and will have a budget of just over 50 million euros. This is almost ten times more than the previous plan (around six million). “The inhabitants of our department travel an average of 30 kilometers per day, but there are often several trips of 8 to 9 kilometers. If we want to lower the share of the car, we must offer real solutions to residents. The bicycle is one of them, ”explains André Lefeuvre. Relatively flat, the territory appears to be favorable to the development of the bicycle, reinforced by the development of the electrically assisted bicycle.
# CD35 # BP2020 New travel policies are being considered within the framework of # Mobilités2025: bicycle network, carpooling…
➡️Objectives: safety and preservation of the environment. # inforoute35 pic.twitter.com/5Hw4VMbcpa
In the coming years, the department therefore wishes to create dedicated lanes for two-wheelers to encourage its inhabitants to pedal for their home-work journeys. Lanes far enough from the roads "without too much slope or discontinuity" but close enough to multimodal hubs and stations to allow cyclists to climb on a train or coach to travel greater distances. “We have been carrying out this reflection for several months. We want to be inspired by what is done in Belgium or in the Netherlands ”, continues Bernard Marquet, vice-president of the department responsible for regional planning.
"Many projects in stock"
Without advancing on routes, the departmental council evokes "many projects in stock" requested by the municipalities. A link project between Rennes and La Mézière is in particular under study. This place made for cycling comes at a time when a group of associations is demanding "the abandonment of new road infrastructure projects" and has seized the department to exercise a right of arrest.
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