CRITICAL MASS IN TRANSPORTATION: CASE STUDY, PARIS

Fannie Olivier 

(Paris, May 1^st, 2007) As of July 15, it will be possible for a Parisian to go to one of the 750 bike stations, to be known as “Vélib”, to rent one of the 10,600 bikes the city of Paris will make available. For only a symbolic cost (1 euro a day or 29 euros a year), people will be able, for example, to pick up a bike in the 18^th district where they live and hand it back in the 5^th where they work. By the end of 2007, the city of Paris is expected to have 20,600 bikes available for Parisians, fed up with cars or public transport.  

Are 20 000 more bikes in Paris’ streets enough to create a critical mass which will reduce car use in the City of Lights? It is hard to tell. But coupled with other incentives to encourage people to ride a bike rather than take their car, it can certainly have a positive impact. The vast transportation plan Bertrand Delanoe has put in place since his election at City Hall in 2001 has shown good results. Thanks to the construction of numerous additional bicycle lanes, as well as preference for bicycles in bus lanes, the number of Parisians who ride their bikes in Paris’ streets has grown by almost 50% in 5 years, for a total of 140,000 bike trips every day.

The quality of life has also been enhanced by these measures. Christine Doucet, who has been living in Paris for five years, always takes her bike to get to work. She says that it became much easier to do this in the past couple of months. “Since there are more bike riders in the streets, car drivers are getting used to sharing the road. It is a virtuous circle”.  

But this virtuous circle might not be enough. Bertrand Delanoe’s goal to cut motor-vehicle use by half by 2008 is far from being reached… The next step would be to go even further: to tax drivers who want to get into the city center by car or to coordinate traffic lights for pedestrians or bicycle riders rather than for drivers for instance.