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Paris announces four-year plan to become a ‘100 per cent cyclable city’

French capital aims to become the most bikeable city in Europe

Paris is investing $360 million to upgrade their cycling infrastructure in the next four years. On Monday, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced the new plan, dubbed “Plan Velo: Act 2.” The plan lays out a list of updates for the city, including creating more cycle tracks, adding more bicycle parking spaces and increasing winter maintenance.

This year, like many cities in North America and Europe, Paris increased their number of temporary cycle tracks and bike paths by 52 km, bringing the total amount of dedicated bicycle paths to over 1000 km. Paris has announced that the temporary paths will become permanent, and will add an additional 130 km of bike paths to encourage more Parisians to ride their bikes across town.

The goal, according to Hidalgo, is to make Paris a “100 per cent cyclable city.” The plan also includes additional funds for maintaining the bike paths in the winter with pledges to remove snow and ice from the paths.

In order to make room for the additional bicycle parking spaces, car parking spaces will be removed. This follows earlier changes this year in the city which some dubbed a “war on cars” which saw speed limits within the city reduced to 30 km/h, in an effort to increase air quality within the city.