After deconfinement, is it time for pedestrians and bikes?
The government will release 20 million euros for “bikers” and help cities and departments that prepare cycle lanes and temporary pedestrian zones.
This plan will take in particular:
– A package of 50 euros to repair a used bicycle (change brakes, lights, tires …). Repairers will be listed on the site of the French Federation of Bicycle Users. The sale and repair of bicycles is one of the activities authorized during confinement.
– The funding of temporary parking spaces.
– Funding for training to learn or relearn to ride a bicycle.
– Acceleration of the introduction in the private sector of the sustainable mobility package, up to 400 euros.
“A step in cycling culture”
Across France, cities are facing the travel puzzle from May 11: how to avoid people, who risk turning away from public transport for fear of the virus, massively deport themselves to the car, adding to the epidemic of road congestion and air pollution problems?
Since mid-April, several municipalities, or even entire departments, have been working on the subject. Grenoble, Montpellier, Lyon, Rouen, Lille, Rennes, Nice, Paris, Montreuil, the departments of Val-de-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis … The list continues to grow.
The tracks selected: favor walking and cycling, when 60% of journeys made in France today by car are less than 5 km.
Hence this bicycle aid plan, set up by the government … Because France is lagging behind in this area compared to other European countries.
“It is a boost to cycling during the period of deconfinement to encourage us to choose this mode of movement. We want this period to take a step in the bike culture, and that the bicycle is the little queen of deconfinement in some way sort “, explained the Minister of Ecological Transition, Elisabeth Borne, in an interview with Parisien.
Transforming streets into cycle paths
Helping the bicycle grow also involves urban planning.
For cycling, explains Cerema study center, it is possible to transform two-lane streets into one-lane streets, with a cycle track next to it, to reduce four-lanes into two lanes, with temporary materials, into moderating the speed of cars if necessary for the safety of cyclists.
–
Temporary installations for bicycles and pedestrians will be exempt from prior authorization.
The bicycle aid plan in any case delights the Fub: “The government has become aware that the bicycle is a tool that can meet the challenge of deconfinement”.
–
