A battle of a new kind is taking place recently, under the asphalt, with paint, concrete blocks and plastic studs. Monday, May 25, it was a little past 8 p.m., when teams from the technical services of the Aix-Marseille metropolitan area began covering the yellow bikes drawn with black just two weeks earlier on the ground of the avenue. Prado. The temporary cycle path that ran along this 60-meter-wide urban axis has been eliminated. “The experiment did not find its audience”, justifies the metropolis, in a press release.
The route did not have time to prove itself, replied, furious, cyclists and members of the Vélos en ville collective who tried to physically oppose the dismantling. Thursday, May 28, hundreds of people were meeting to pedal in the same place. The horns of motorists were answered by the bells of the demonstrators. They suspect the elected officials of having yielded to pressure from the Confederation of Neighborhood Interest Committees. On May 11, this Marseille institution judged ” difficult “ to chase cars out of certain lanes “To assign them specifically to bikes”.
A few days earlier, in mid-May, it was in the heart of Paris, opposite the Hôtel-Dieu, that concrete blocks installed the previous day had to be removed immediately at night, on the orders of the Prefecture of Police. However, “A technical agreement had been concluded”, assures Ariel Weil, the mayor (PS) of 4e borough. Other episodes of the same type took place in the big suburbs. In recent days, itineraries in the Yvelines, between Le Pecq and Chatou, and in Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, in the Val-d’Oise, have been erased.
Traced in an emergency
But, at the same time, for the first time, cyclists were taking it easy, in Paris, on the Bastille-Concorde axis free, or almost, of any car. And on the other side of the periphery, in Montreuil, an impassable four-lane had become, in a handful of days, an avenue at 30 km / h on which the cyclists meet on the right, in two lines, confining the cars on the other half of the roadway.
In Montpellier, Grenoble, but also in Besançon, at the foot of La Défense or in Villeurbanne, the scenes are similar. For a little over a month, in anticipation of the deconfinement, bicycle paths have been urgently traced along the roads, most often by removing a lane from motorized traffic. This race to occupy public space by bicycle also takes place in Germany, Italy or the United States. The transformation is not smooth, but, if confirmed, could permanently change the face of cities.
You have 69.06% of this article to read. The suite is reserved for subscribers.
–
