Recently back from summer holidays in northern France, visiting (and cycling in) Paris, Rennes, and St Malo.
I am sure most of you will have heard about the near miraculous work on cycle infrastructure and growth of cycling in Paris in recent years. Well, there are lots of cyclists and quite a bit of infrastructure, but cycling in central Paris is the closest I have ever come to playing real life Frogger. Certainly not for the faint of heart, or any cyclist minded to stop at a red light.
Rennes was a real delight - half the size of Edinburgh, a two line underground! Lots of cycle infrastructure, a largely pedestrianised city centre, public e-bike hire, high frequency buses and an amazing rail/bus/cycle station in the centre of town. Also, seems to be home to almost every remaining 1980s Peugeot road bike still in existance.
St Malo also had what appeared to be a rapidly expanding network of cycle lanes, plus a public e-bike hire scheme.
What really impressed me about all three places is their attitude to rolling out infrastructure. It clearly happens at pace and at scale, generally using low cost approaches. "We" would probably consider some of it a bit rubbish - much shared use, sometimes a bit narrow, route finding sometimes a bit tricky. However, it is there, there is a network, and there seems to be an attitude of live and let live amongst users. No obvious "concerns" about using bus stop bypasses, or sticking to rigid (and gold plated) design standards.
In all three places the facilities were years ahead of Edinburgh. If anything, Rennes should be the template for what Edinburgh could achieve rather than Paris - the scale of pedestrianisation (bikes largely allowed too) is quite something.
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