Why we need more carrot and stick if we’re going to change our cities
Paris says it will create the largest fleet of electric bicycles in the world: a controversial decision in light of the many problems related to its previous program, the largest and most ambitious anywhere when it was launched in 2007, but that due to countless problems under the management of the Spanish-French consortium Smovengo has seen the number of users fall from 290,000 to 219,000.
The new program, which will complement the previous one, aims to provide 10,000 electric bicycles from September 2019 — with the possibility of reaching 20,000 — to city residents on a long-term rental basis costing €40 a month, with businesses invited to subsidize half of that cost for their employees. The idea of the €111 million project is to encourage Parisians to commute to and from work by bike: at present pedal power makes up only 1.6% of the total transportation in the Île-de-France region. Despite its significantly higher price than the hugely popular electric scooters provide by Lime and Bird, has encouraged City Hall, which believes there is a demand for this kind of transportation, if the price is right.
There are some 250,000 electric bicycles, costing between €1,500 and €2,000, in France, compared to 2.7 million conventional bicycles. The Parisian authorities hope that users will try them and that over time some will buy their own.
Encouraging the use of bikes is just one of the factors that will change our cities. Along with other programs, such as electric car-sharing and better public transport, are the carrot, but the stick also has a role to play by gradually increasing restrictions on private car use such as restricting traffic in more and more areas, implementing tolls, prohibiting street parking and above all, creating bike and scooter lanes, measures that will make it clear private cars are not welcome in cities that, in many cases, were designed to facilitate car use. We can put as many bicycles and scooters on to our cities’ streets as we like, but if using them means taking our lives in our hands in cities where cars rule, we’re not going to bring about change any time soon.
Changing our unsustainable, polluted and traffic-choked cities by restricting car use to make them more livable is one of the most pressing challenges we face. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has paid a political price for her commitment to bikes and has demanded emergency measures to resolve those issues and put the new scheme in motion. In Madrid, Mayor Manuela Carmena and her team are working on further restrictions on private vehicles in the center of Madrid, which, despite being fundamental for the future of the city, faces stiff political opposition. The measures adopted by Carmena since she took over the running of the Spanish capital Madrid have so far played a significant role in sparing Spain a fine from the European Commission of up to €2.7 billion that Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Romania and Hungary now face.
Other cities, many with inhospitable climates, offer an example of how to change people’s habits and reduce car numbers by using technology, as well as requiring companies to install showers in the workplace for bike users. When it comes to driving change and encouraging us to leave behind the habits of the past, the carrot and the stick is a great combination. The greatest challenge facing humanity cannot be abandoned just because a few of us can’t be bothered. Redesigning our cities and transportation systems is an increasingly fundamental task if we want a viable future. And those who don’t want the carrot will find themselves facing the stick.