Is Paris the worst city for bikes?

Written By Lucile Ramackers

Paris, capital of France — and supposedly of love — was a dense and vibrant city in pre-Covid19 times, which was not usually considered a haven for bikes, unlike its Dutch and Danish counterparts. The Deputy Mayor of Paris for transport even states on his Linkedin account that Paris is “the most beautiful city in the world. But not for cyclists… yet”. Indeed, public space is scarce, as many Parisians noticed while trying to properly distance themselves when shopping for groceries, and most of the twentieth century saw major city planning decisions favour the car: from the end of the tramway service in 1937 to make room for cars, to the building of the expressway along the banks of the Seine and the Boulevard Périphérique (Paris’ ring-road) completed respectively in 1967 and 1973 — admittedly slightly offset by the decision to implement a parking fee policy. This situation means that competition for roads and friction between various road users are higher than in less concentrated cities, like Berlin for instance. A noticeable surge in interest for the bike grew in the last 20 years, triggered mostly by Vélib, Paris’ public bicycle sharing service, launched in 2007 and seen today as the best transport option in those troubled times. As mobility issues and environmental concerns get more and more crucial, bike policies combined with tactitcal urbanism are tested everywhere and were one of the major topics for this year’s — now postponed — French municipal elections. So, politics aside, is Paris really the worst city for bikes?

What the bike riders say

Let’s rewind a bit and start with the first concerned by this: the bike riders. The French Federation of Bicycle Users (Fédération des Usagers de la Bicyclette — FUB) created a barometer for bike-friendly cities. The 2019 results were published in February 2020, right before we were all urged to stay indoors, and collected bike users’ opinions in all French cities. Paris is ranked fourth among large cities (over 200 000 inhabitants) and is even awarded the special prize for best improvement since the last edition in 2017.

Rankings for the bike-friendliest large French cities in 2019 (source: FUB Barometer 2019)

The detailed results of this survey are available here (in French) and show that 85% of cyclists in Paris consider that the situation got better for them between 2017 and 2019 (#1 in France), even if that is not necessarily enough. Indeed, the analysis of Paris’ strong and weak points speaks for itself:

Paris strong and weak points according to cyclists in 2019 (source: FUB Barometer 2019)

To sum it up, cyclists applaud the city’s efforts, even if they are demonstrably not yet sufficient, as safety and security still need to be drastically improved.

What the numbers show

In addition, the number of cyclists is increasing tremendously, as the public Paris OpenData shows:

Monthly average of hourly bicycle counts until March 14th 2020 (source: OpenData Paris)

One should take into account that the number of detectors is also increasing, thus helping the number of bicycles counted per hour grow. Those numbers also include France’s transport strikes period, from December ‘19 to January ‘20, which saw the number of cyclists skyrocket due to Paris’ low motorisation rate. It obviously doesn’t include the Covid-19 lockdown time, which would not be relevant in that case. Nevertheless, from September ‘18 to November ‘19, the number of cyclists in Paris has increased by 54%: from an average of 1 030 cyclists daily in 2018 to 1 630 daily in 2019 in central Paris.

The broader picture shows the same trend as the number of people who said they used their bikes daily increased by 30 percent between 2010 and 2018 in the Greater Paris area (Ile-de-France Region), according to a study — in French — conducted by Ile-de-France-Mobilités, Ile-de-France’s Transport Authority. Indeed, 320 000 Ile-de-France inhabitants made an average 840 000 journeys by bike every day. In that same time, the number of car rides and motorcycle or scooter rides dropped respectively by 5% and 36%, which is a first!

Number of daily trips per mode in the Ile-de-France region between 2010 and 2018 (source: Global transport survey-OMNIL)

All in all, this isn’t so bad for ‘not the most beautiful city in the world for cyclists’. In fact, we could very well be at a tipping point where the number of daily car trips can’t increase anymore because the streets are already too jammed, pollution is reaching alarming levels and, most importantly, cars are not the most efficient means of transport in a dense city for the majority of the population. Again, if one looks at the data, it shows that over two thirds of all journeys in the Region are under 3 km and last less than 30 minutes. You don’t need a car for that.

Distribution of trips according to their range and duration in 2018 (source: Global transport survey-OMNIL)

To put things in perspective, walking is ideal for journeys under 1 km while biking is for journeys between 4 and 8 km (over 10 km, one can consider an electric bike, arguably a sound investment). As the number of daily trips is bound to keep on increasing and with the average trip being 4.7 km, a shift in favour of the bike seems most relevant, especially in post-Covid-19 times, as we need to maintain a physical distance between people.

Moreover, the Ile-de-France Mobilités survey also shows that 60% of all trips by bike are carried out by men, compared to 90% for motorcycles or scooters, meaning the bike is a women-friendlier means of transportation. Granted, there is still room for improvement, as women account for 51,7% of the population, but the bike already seems to better cater to their needs.

Indeed, women’s travel patterns are usually forgotten when it comes to transport planning, but Caroline Criado Perez’s eye-opening book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men reveals how they differ from men’s “standard” travel pattern. I cannot recommend reading Invisible Women enough, but if you lack time, a focus on hidden data gap in transport has already been written by Nicole Badstuber, a transport policy researcher and writer (a French translation is also available on Femmes en Mouvement’s website).

In a nutshell, women’s travel patterns are usually more complicated as they tend to trip-chain more, i.e. tie together small trips into a larger journey plan. According to Criado Perez’s studies, women are indeed ‘25% more likely to trip-chain, and up to 39% if there is a child in the household’, because women in dual-worker families are twice as likely as men to drop off or pick up children on their commute. And short trips as part of a longer journey tend to be neglected when collecting travel data, increasing the data gap between men and women.

Because women are doing most of the paid and unpaid care work, promoting means of transportation favorable towards women actually helps everybody. Women already walk and take public transportation more than men, so even if these still need to be improved, it is essential to make biking more attractive to them as well, especially as public transport is not considered safe enough in a time of pandemic. Why? Because when women and children are present in any public space, be it a park or a street, it means it is safe enough for them and therefore well designed for everyone.

What can be done

To help our decision-makers understand better what needs to be done, we decided at Femmes en Mouvement (a professional network both for women working in the mobility sector and addressing issues concerning the mobility of women) to offer bike tours at peak hour to volunteer candidates in municipal elections. The idea was that decision-makers often don’t consciously discrimintate against women, but they simply might be unaware of layouts that are not women-friendly. The campaign is called “Vélodacieuse”, a nice play on words that can literally translate to “woman who has the audacity to bike” (yes, sometimes French can be more concise than English). We organized three tours in Paris in late February and early March, which are all well-documented by my fellow Vélodacieuse Albane Godard (in French: #1, #2, #3), and here is what we discussed:

  1. Fragmented bike lanes blur priorities and the sense of being welcome or not on the road;

  2. Developping bike routes in secondary local streets offers an itinerary in a quieter environment that is definitely more likely to convince people—and women in particular—to hop on a bike;

  3. Improving street lighting for pedestrians and cyclists, and not only for car drivers and security reasons, can change a lot how public space is perceived as safe and friendly — or not — at night;

  4. Designs that work only on paper are all too common (narrow lanes that prevent overtaking easily, dangerous road edges, unexpected tight curves or obstacles on the cycle lane…) and don’t take into account how people will actually use them. The now popular concept of tactical urbanism is a good way to test and adapt quickly before building more permanent and costly infrastructure;

  5. Left turns are the most stressful (right turns in left driving countries, obviously) and need to be well-designed: a bike box at the head of the traffic lane is essential (at any intersection, honestly) and a turn queue box to cross traffic safely is highly recommended;

  6. Well-thought out signings and markings help cyclists find their bearings and know where they can cycle safely. Paris could use more of them, so that cyclists wouldn’t have to check their phone, and those signs could suggest different route options: a quick route and a quieter route for instance;

  7. Last but not least, critical mass is extremely effective, as the more cyclists there are on the road, the safer they feel (and they are indeed more protected, as cars drive more slowly and adapt their driving to their presence). We definitely saw a difference as riding in a group offered a very different experience than the solo-travel we were all used to. Developping the idea of “bike pooling” could also help the more anxious cyclists be more relaxed.

These suggestions concur with the FUB Barometer 2019 and offer very pragmatic solutions, which are not necessarily costly but can do a lot to improve perceived safety and convince more (Greater) Parisians to ride a bicyle.

In Coronavirus times, fears of gridlock caused by increased car traffic from May 11th, when France’s lockdown restrictions are to be eased, had every official worry and look for alternative solutions. This helped accelerate existing plans in favour of the bike, but also convince formerly reluctant elected representatives to change their mind and instead think of the ways they could nudge their constituents to ride their bike to work instead of being crammed into trains, let alone driving their car (if they have one). This lead to 650 km of cycleways, including pop-up cycle paths or "corona lanes", to be readied for the end of lockdown in the entire region. And this is just the beginning, as some of these lanes could very well become permanent. So, with growing political will in the Greater Paris area and projects underway or under development, Paris could — finally — become a pretty good city for bikes…

Sources:

Lucile Ramackers
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