Biking revolution has Paris roiling
Battles common between pedestrians, riders in this capital
PARIS — On a recent afternoon, the Rue de Rivoli looked like this: Cyclists blowing through red lights in two directions. Delivery bike riders fixating on their cellphones. Electric scooters careening across lanes. Jaywalkers and nervous pedestrians scrambling as if in a video game.
Sarah Famery, a 20-year resident of the Marais neighborhood, braced for the tumult. She looked left, then right, then left and right again before venturing into a crosswalk, only to break into a rant-laden sprint as two cyclists came within inches of grazing her.
“It’s chaos!” said Famery, shaking a fist at the swarm of bikes that have displaced cars on the Rue de Rivoli since it was remade into a multilane highway for cyclists last year. “Politicians want to make Paris a cycling city, but no one is following any rules. It’s becoming risky just to cross the street!”
The mayhem on Rue de Rivoli — a major traffic artery stretching from the Bastille past the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde — is playing out on streets across Paris as authorities pursue an ambitious goal of making the city a European cycling capital by 2024.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is campaigning for the French presidency, has been burnishing her credentials as an ecologically minded Socialist candidate. She has earned admirers and enemies alike with a bold program to transform greater Paris into the world’s leading environmentally sustainable metropolis, reclaiming vast swaths of the city from cars for parks, pedestrians and a Copenhagen, Denmark-style cycling revolution.
She has made highways along the Seine car-free and
last year, during coronavirus lockdowns, oversaw the creation of more than 100 miles of new bike paths. She plans to limit cars in 2022 in the heart of the city, along half of the Right Bank and through the Boulevard Saint Germain.
Parisians have heeded the call: A million people in a metropolis of 10 million are now pedaling daily. And Paris now ranks among the world’s Top 10 cycling cities.
But with success has come major growing pains.
“It’s like Paris is in anarchy,” said Jean-Conrad LeMaitre, a former banker who was out for a stroll recently along the Rue de Rivoli. “We need to reduce pollution and improve the environment. But everyone is just doing as they please. There are no police, no fines, no training and no respect.”
At City Hall, the people
in charge of the transformation acknowledged the need for solutions to the flaring tensions, and to the accidents and even deaths that have resulted from the free-for-all on the streets. Anger over reckless electric scooter use in particular boiled over after a 31-yearold woman was killed this summer in a hit-and-run along the Seine.
“We are in the midst of a new era where bikes and pedestrians are at the heart of a policy to fight climate change,” said David Belliard, Paris’ deputy mayor for transportation and the point person overseeing the metamorphosis. “But it’s only recently that people started using bikes en masse, and it will take time to adapt.”
Belliard hopes Parisians can be coaxed into complying with laws, in part by adding more police to hand
out $158 fines to unruly cyclists and by teaching schoolchildren about bike safety. Electric scooters have been restricted to a speed of just over 6 mph in crowded areas and could be banned by the end of 2022 if dangerous use does not stop.
The city also plans talks with delivery companies such as Uber Eats, whose couriers are paid per delivery and are some of the biggest offenders when it comes to breaking traffic rules.
Probably the biggest challenge, though, is that Paris does not yet have an ingrained cycling culture.
The abiding French sense of “liberte” is on display in the streets at all hours, where Parisians young and old jaywalk at nearly every opportunity. They appear to have carried that freewheeling spirit to their bikes.
“In Denmark, which has a decadeslong cycling culture, the mentality is, ‘Don’t go if the light is red,’ ” said Christine Melchoir, a Dane who has lived in Paris for 30 years and commutes daily by bike. “But for a Parisian, the mentality is, ‘Do it!’ ”
Belliard, the deputy mayor, said Paris would soon unveil a blueprint to improve infrastructure. But for now, the tumult continues.
On a recent afternoon, eight cyclists ran a red light en masse on the Boulevard de Sebastopol, a major north-south artery. Wary pedestrians cowered until one dared to try crossing, causing a near pileup.
Back on the Rue de Rivoli, cyclists swerved to avoid pedestrians playing a game of chicken with oncoming bikes. “Pay attention!” a cyclist in a red safety vest and goggles shouted at three women crossing against a red light, as he nearly crashed in the rain.
Cyclists say Paris has not done enough to make bike commuting safe. Bike accidents jumped 35% last year, from 2019. Paris en Selle, a cycling organization, has held protests calling for road security after several cyclists were killed in collisions with motorists, including, recently, a 2-year-old boy riding with his father who was killed near the Louvre when a truck turned into them.
A small but growing number of cyclists say they are too nervous to ride anymore.
“I’m afraid of being crushed,” said Paul Michel Casabelle, 44, a superintendent at the Maison de Danmark, a Danish cultural institute.