The government is moving up a gear to promote the use of bicycles. The bicycle plan fund will be “endowed with 250 million euros in 2023“, announced Matignon on Tuesday. This is the fourth anniversary of this system, endowed in principle with 500 million euros until 2025. The government specifies that a “interministerial cycling committee“, in which all the ministers concerned will take part, will also be launched in the autumn and will meet every six months.
The “active mobility funds“, which allows the financing of infrastructures, will be part of “in a logic of contracting with local authorities, to ensure that investments are targeted and effective. It will be endowed with 250 million euros for 2023; 200 million will be dedicated to infrastructure and 50 million euros for parking“, according to Matignon.”The multi-annual envelope remains to be defined, because it will be part of the overall reflection on transport infrastructure, based in particular on the infrastructure orientation council which will be delivered this autumn.“, according to this source.
At the end of 2018, the government of Édouard Philippe, of which Élisabeth Borne was then Minister of Transport, announced a national “bicycle plan” establishing in particular a fund of 350 million euros over seven years (2018-2025), topped up with 150 million additional euros by the recovery plan decided after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Device “know how to ride a bike” in primary school
According to the Ministry of Ecology website, “the first five calls for projects launched between 2019 and 2022 were a great success with 933 winning projects for a total of 365 million euros in grants. 599 territories have thus been able to benefit from support for the realization of projects for the sustainability of transition cycle paths, the creation of secure cycle routes and the reduction of route discontinuities.“.
The bicycle plan, which now runs until 2027, also intends to bring to an entire age group the “knowing how to ride a bicycle” device in primary school, which has benefited 160,000 children for three years.