Investing in Cycling Infrastructure: Paris

Overview

The city of Paris’s ‘Plan Velo’, or cycling plan, for 2015-20 aimed to triple the share of cycling trips from around 5% to 15%. The plan included creating a network of ‘express’ cycling paths, installing over 10,000 bicycle parking spaces and ensuring continual improvements of the city’s bike-sharing scheme, Vélib. The budget for the new cycling infrastructure investment was $175 million (150 million euros) and the combined length of cycling paths increased from around 700km in 2015 to over 1,000km in early 2020.

The Covid-19 pandemic helped Paris deliver on the cycling plan. The targeted roll-out of new cycle paths was facing delays in 2018, but after the strictest lockdowns were lifted in spring 2020, an additional 600km of temporarily marked cycle paths were deployed. This enabled cycling to increase when public transport use dropped due to health concerns. The city of Paris estimated that the target of 15% of trips made by bike was met in 2020, as cycle trips spiked by 50% over 2019-20.

The effort to enhance cycling infrastructure continues post 2020, to keep down air pollution levels even as traffic increases after the pandemic. The cycling plan is accompanied by other policies aiming to reduce traffic in the city center.

The capital city of France has 2.2 million inhabitants and a well-developed public transport system, including a metro network. Despite this, many inhabitants have relied on cars for trips within the city, which has helped make Paris one of the three most polluted European capitals. Paris has a Climate Action Plan, aiming for carbon neutrality in 2050. Reducing emissions will positively affect air quality as well, as the different pollutants mainly originate from the same sources

Impact

Investments in walking and cycling infrastructure reduce emissions and can deliver direct health and exercise benefits to city residents. In addition, both bike-sharing schemes and the construction of cycling infrastructure creates new jobs across the value chain.

The share of trips in Paris made by bicycle has increased from around 5% in 2015, to almost 15% in 2020, when cycling was promoted as a safe way of traveling after the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions eased. Much of this success is due to the combination of many policies in Paris, with a bike-share scheme, restrictions on traffic flows, increased cycling lanes and national grant schemes to promote cycling.

Road traffic contributed to approximately 22% of Paris’ carbon emissions in 2018. Additionally, the levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter pollution put Paris among the top three most polluted European capitals. Replacing some of the car-based trips with cycling could lower emissions, but the car-dominated roads have traditionally put many Parisians off cycling. Note that cycling does not only replace car journeys, as it also substitutes trips made by public transport. Therefore, the cycling policy must be combined with incentives to reduce the use of cars to efficiently tackle emissions.

Opportunity

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced in January 2020 that she intended to make every street of Paris cycle-friendly by 2024. The cycling plan is part of a wider transport plan, which is aimed at reducing traffic congestion and pollution. As part of this effort, the speed limit on the streets of central Paris were capped at 30km/h from August 2021.

The approach to reduce cars and increase cycling, walking and public transport one is done step by step and in consultation with residents. New draft policies to reduce the number of cars on the streets of Paris are designed through a participatory approach, where stakeholders such as shop-owners and taxi drivers have been widely consulted.

The city has also collaborated with the national government to offer grants for citizens to repair their bikes and purchase e-bikes and cargo bikes.

Source: BloombergNEF, C40.

Source

Source: BloombergNEF and C40 report, Building on Cities to Deliver a Green and Just Recovery

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