Three meters wide, a red coating, a slope and a radius of curvature adapted to the average power of a cyclist, water evacuation grids designed so as not to get the wheels stuck in them… In La Mézière (Ille-et-Vilaine), north of Rennes, this cycle path recalls the excellence that we only see in the Netherlands, number one for cycling in Europe. The work was designed by agents used to building roads, the “ex-DDE”, as they say in reference to the departmental equipment directorates, decentralized state services abolished in 2009.
Use the skills of road engineers to build a cycling network? This choice is explained by the moratorium on road bypasses, decided in Ille-et-Vilaine after the 2021 departmental elections. “At that moment, we questioned ourselves, we asked ourselves what we were used for”confides Pierre Ewald, director of major infrastructure works at the department.
“It was difficult for them, but we adapted the organization chart and created a mobility department which did not exist”, indicates Schirel Lemonne, departmental advisor (various left). The services, around a hundred people in total, were partly reassigned to carrying out the Bicycle plan, decided during the previous mandate. Some 70 million euros are financing the creation of 24 so-called “high level of service” trails which should crisscross the department.
“We managed to trick”
“The department welcomes 10,000 new residents each year. We want to prevent the use of private cars from increasing in the same proportions. It’s a hundred-year projection”, assures Schirel Lemonne. After a study trip to Belgium, the agents drafted a “very complete repository” for cycling facilities, says Pierre Ewald. “We design real cycling routes, starting from our core business”, explains Katell Colas, head of the studies and works department. If the department does not officially have competence in mobility matters, “we managed to trick”admits Mme Lemonne, because this level controls the roads and the services that design them.
In the neighboring Channel, the executive has chosen to transform part of its road network, 8,000 kilometers in total, into cycle routes. The department relied on a decree of April 2022 which broadens the concept of “greenway”, until then reserved for pedestrians and cyclists, now open to local residents and agricultural machinery. The formula makes it possible to create more routes without penalizing local motorized services. For Axel Fortin-Larivière, vice-president (various centers) in charge of travel in the department, this is an opportunity: “The mobility of tomorrow allows us to rethink the road network. »