Paris Tries to Revive Bicycles

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This vulnerability is something Baupin and Delanoe also want to address, because riding a bike through Paris still requires a measure of courage. Trapped between a solid wall of motor traffic and breakneck motorcyclists -- or kamikaze scooter drivers -- bicyclists in this city of two million need strong nerves as well as strong calves, all the more so because the average French cyclist tends to navigate the streets in a Jacobin spirit of revolt. Red lights aren't considered a stop signal; 71 percent told the newspaper Le Parisien that they just zip through the intersection. One-way streets are mainly symbolic. The French cyclist is assertive and reckless, like the Parisian motorist, who tends to behave like a truck driver even when he sits behind the wheel of a Citroën.

But the city has invested heavily in its bicycle infrastructure over the past three years. This measure is part of a larger strategy to spoil the fun for car drivers, a strategy that has earned Mayor Baupin the reputation of being a "dangerous madman," or even a "Khmer Vert."

The "man who declared war on cars" (as the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur calls him) can understand the anger of the drivers: "It's about more than a means of transportation, after all," says Mayor Baupin. "It's about their place in society." Still, the technocrat and advocate of metropolitan transit ("I drive in a car with a hundred seats: It's called the metro") is convinced that it is only by such means that problems like air pollution and congestion can be avoided.

Since 2001, Paris's network of bike paths has been expanded to a total length of 320 kilometers (199 miles). Many of the paths are separate traffic corridors, or else marked tracks along the streets, and outside Paris along the canals. That's certainly an improvement. But statisticians also count those 118 kilometers (73 miles) of chaussée routes that cyclists "share" with buses as bike paths. And even where the paths are exemplary, such as along the banks of the Seine, cyclists cannot ride undisturbed -- since motorcyclists race their machines along them during rush hour, leading to encounters that sometimes curdle the blood.

So Paris may remain dangerous territory for pedal-pushing commuters, but the bicycle is still a pleasant alternative for tourists. Associations like "Mieux se déplacer à bicyclette" (MDB, or "Better to Travel By Bike") or "Paris Rando Vélo" organize excursions and nightly rides. Meanwhile companies like "Paris à Vélo, C'est Sympa," "Paris Vélo Rent-a-bike" and "Paris Bike Tour" offer extravagant tours -- also in foreign languages. Bike rental agencies offer their own services, and those who fear the inclines on the city's hills -- as on the Butte Montmartre or the approach to the Champs Elysées -- can resort to the bikes rented by "Paris Charms Secrets," which are equipped with electric auxiliary engines.

Baupin and Delanoe hope a little government action can turn Paris back to a slightly simpler era. Perhaps the city of love will still allow for unexpected encounters of the romantic kind, of the kind Yves Montand sang about: à Bicyclette. Paulette, in any case, would be thrilled.

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