After an ambitious plan to boost green mobility, Paris managed to multiply its bicycle traffic by 2.4 times between 2018 and 2023.
Thus, the French capital went from being a traffic nightmare to one of the most bike-friendly cities in Europe.
The change occurred thanks to 13 integrated urban policies that redefined mobility in a few years.
Thanks to these, the use of bicycles in Paris increased by 240% in five years, according to a recent study.
In this way, the city went from having its streets dominated by engines to a permanent cycling network of hundreds of kilometers that facilitates sustainable mobility.
Even in the central districts of Paris, more than 10% of daily trips are already made by bicycles.
A decade ago, this figure was unthinkable, as Paris was historically associated with the automobile.
“Paris demonstrates what happens when political will is supported by data and not by intuitions,” the report’s authors noted.
Methodology: 114 counters and five areas of analysis
The research team combined multiple layers of information to understand the transformation.
The basis of the analysis was the daily records of 114 automatic counters of bicycles spread throughout the city.
The researchers cross-referenced data on weather, holidays, strikes, and periods of confinement as independent variables.
They also built a detailed timeline with open data from the Paris City Hall.
The study analyzed 13 factors of urban policy grouped into five key areas:
- Direct cycling policies
- Restrictions on motorized traffic
- Alterations in other modes of transport
- Improvements in urban livability
- Economic conditions
The team used statistical tools like StratIMPORT and kernel SHAP to separate overlapping effects. These techniques allowed estimating how much weight each factor had in the real increase in bicycle use.
The formula for Paris’s success: facilitating bicycles and complicating cars
To achieve this progress, protected lanes and secure parking for bicycles were fundamental pieces.
Additionally, policies that made car use more difficult were equally decisive.
In particular, the implementation of low-emission zones, the reduction of lanes for private traffic, and the progressive increase in fuel prices pushed Paris’s mobility system towards bicycles.
The key, the analysis asserts, was in the perception of safety: when the streets of Paris became calmer, people who had never considered using bicycles began to do so.
Thus, from families to the elderly and students adopted the bicycle as a daily means of transport in Paris.
Finally, urban livability policies also had an indirect but measurable effect. More trees, more shade, more squares, and more benches created environments that invite non-motorized movement.
As a result, Paris’s public bicycle system, Vélib‘, experienced a revival with more than 400,000 subscribers.
The bicycle in Paris, from public policy to urban culture
Paris’s success is thanks to the efforts of its mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who made the bicycle a central axis of her urban project.
In this line, since 2020 Paris has built more than 1000 km of bicycle infrastructure and removed thousands of parking spaces for cars.
For this, the European city committed 250 million euros in investment until 2026.
Car-free school zones also became another powerful symbol: streets that were once points of congestion are now filled with children walking, skateboards, and conversations.
This aligns with Paris’s 2026 goal: to become a “100% bikeable” city by the end of the year, “killing” the dependence on cars.
