21/05/2026
"None of this happened by accident. The Paris Vélo Plan 2021 to 2026 set aside hundreds of millions of euros for protected lanes, secure parking, and the gradual removal of car spaces. The data is the receipt.
The lesson for other cities is unglamorous and consistent. People will ride if you build for them. They will not if you do not."
In 2010, bikes made up about 3 percent of trips inside Paris. Cars dominated. The city centre was loud, smoggy, and built around the assumption that getting somewhere meant driving.
In April 2024, the Institut Paris Région published the results of a regional mobility survey that tracked 3,337 residents over roughly six months between October 2022 and April 2023. The headline stopped people in their tracks. Bicycles now account for 11.2 percent of trips inside Paris. Cars account for just 4.3 percent. The bike has officially overtaken the car. Walking still leads the city at 53 percent, public transport at 30, but among the two modes that have been at war for a hundred years, the war is over.
Deputy mayor David Belliard, in charge of transport, posted the result on X. Ten years ago, who could have predicted that bicycles would take over cars. Yet, it happened. He called it a first victory.
The transformation is most visible on Rue de Rivoli. In 2014 it was a multi-lane car corridor running past the Louvre. Today it is a two-way protected cycle lane and one of the busiest in Europe. Eco-Counter sensors on the parallel Boulevard Sébastopol recorded more than 22,000 bicycle trips in a single day in September 2024, numbers usually associated with metro lines rather than surface streets. The volumes have already forced the city to plan widening the lane that triggered them.
None of this happened by accident. The Paris Vélo Plan 2021 to 2026 set aside hundreds of millions of euros for protected lanes, secure parking, and the gradual removal of car spaces. The data is the receipt.
The lesson for other cities is unglamorous and consistent. People will ride if you build for them. They will not if you do not.