Understanding Paris's cycling revolution

Our latest report analyses the actors, policies, and events at the core of Paris’s so-called ‘cycling revolution’, its historical development, and current challenges. Active travel, and cycling in particular, has only become central to the re-thinking of urban mobility in Paris since 2015, thanks to a number of planned and unexpected opportunities.

How has the change come about?

Our interviews and analysis of policy literature and field-visits find the following key factors in enabling Paris’s ongoing transformation:

  • The role of the Parisian Mayor has been crucial, with action by previous Mayors forming a basis for Anne Hidalgo to go further and make active travel policy emblematic of her candidacy and, once elected, mayoralty.

  • A vision of an integrated network for cycling and walking has gathered wide support and formed a paradigm shift within city transport policy, even if the implementation has not always lived up to the vision.

  • The expansion of units and organisations dedicated to active travel has helped build a power base within institutions that, historically, have often prioritised motorised modes.

  • Engaged citizens have worked with policymakers, sometimes supporting policy and sometimes challenging its limitations, for instance around disparities in investment.

  • High-profile projects like the transformation of the Seine banks, have helped give momentum to the wider programme by providing ‘good examples’, while data on infrastructural change and usage has helped evidence behaviour change.

  • National and international attention to active travel has further supported Paris’s transformation, reducing the likelihood that policies would be blocked and meaning that pro-cycling policies could gain international attention for the city.

  • Unexpected opportunities, such as public transport strikes or the reduction in motor traffic during Covid-19, provided additional evidence of the public’s willingness to change behaviour and a chance to build temporary and experimental infrastructure.

Figure 3: the annual evolution of the number of bicycles in Paris

What challenges have been identified?

However, there are also key challenges which need to be addressed to ensure the widespread adoption of active travel, which aligns with equity objectives in the city and broader region.

  • Institutional legacies, such as the high levels of police control over street transformations and experiments and their hostility towards such experiments, continued to block change.

  • While there has been substantial change, the quality and quantity of infrastructure has not always been what was hoped for. For instance, in some cases, space for cycling has been taken from footways rather than space for cars.

  • In the context of rapid uptake of walking, cycling, and new e-mobilities, there have at times been tensions and conflicts between users of different modes.

  • Implementation has been spatially unequal, to some extent within Paris itself but much more so comparing intramural Paris to neighbouring districts, which is linked to the differing governance structures and patterns of land use and transport development.

Figure 2: Cycle network of Paris

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cfmc, getting-aroundHannah Bland