“It’s true that Covid-19 has been an accelerator of practices, remembers Valérie Faucheux, Rennes assistant in charge of mobility. We therefore supported and even encouraged this trend, which made it possible to calm the city center and develop low-carbon mobility. » In 2020, the City then reaches the major plateau of its bicycle deployment plan: secure cycle paths, cycle streets, express bicycle network in the metropolis… Infrastructures are multiplying.
Part 1: Explosion in cycling: how the city of Rennes is trying to adapt
Results: between September 2019 and September 2023, the City recorded an increase of 87% in bicycle traffic in Rennes, and 26% in the metropolis. Or 74,800 bicycle passages per day in Rennes in September 2023, compared to 40,000 four years earlier. All for an amount spent of “€35 per inhabitant of the metropolis in 2022”, assures the elected official. Or double that allocated in 2019…
“Sidewalks, pedestrian crossings… Everything is theirs”
This evolution of practices, and therefore of the sharing of public space, is also not without creating tensions between users: motorists complain about the attitude of certain cyclists and traffic jams, pedestrians complain about cyclists: “They took power!” » deplores Mary, who “no longer feels safe: sidewalks, pedestrian crossings… Everything is theirs. »
Part 2: “Feeling like you’re playing with your life on a bike” or “car persona non grata” in Rennes? The difficult coexistence between users
As for cyclists, if they agree that the infrastructure is increasingly qualitative in Rennes mainland, the question of safety remains significant. Since 2019, six cyclists have lost their lives in Rennes or in the inner ring. According to the association of cyclists and pedestrians of the Rennes metropolis, Rayons d’action, nine out of ten intersections remain dangerous in the city.
And if the immense Gayeulles roundabout, a model of a “Dutch-style” secure roundabout in 2022, is hailed, just like “ the express bike network which reaches the external municipalities, there remains a real flaw in Rennes: it is discontinuity”, estimates Rémi Salembier, president of the association.
To work on this, specialized agents from Rennes Métropole regularly meet members of Rayons d’action, to adjust cycle path projects. For each portion, however, it takes about a year and a half to prepare…
Part 3: Dialogue, biodiversity, route… The long design of a cycle path
Because the Metropolis intends to continue to encourage the use of bicycles, one of the levers for “decarbonizing” transport, particularly for residents of Rennes and the inner suburbs of the metropolis. To adapt to climate change, it is necessary to reduce the use of automobiles, which pollute, but also to revegetate. Gold, “between parking and roads, the car uses 50% of the land space in cities in Europe”, recalled two years ago the environmentalist vice-president of Transport of Rennes Métropole, Matthieu Theurier. Safe cycle paths will therefore continue to be deployed.
