France/Cycling and carpooling enter the campaign

Published on 16/04/2021 | La rédaction

France

On 1 July, the communities of communes that have expressed a wish to do so will become mobility organising authorities. This competence should reduce the dependence of the rural world on the car.

The last straight line testifies to the extent of the movement: during the second half of March, dozens of communities of communes chose to take over the competence of mobility organising authority (AOM). It was about time: the deadline had been set at 31 March 2021 by the law on the orientation of mobility (LOM) of 24 December 2019. Ministers had even sent a letter to the prefects to accelerate the process.

"Planning and experimentation". Behind this final sprint hides a long-term work led by France Mobilities, a coordinating body created by the LOM, with the support of three pillars of state engineering: The Agency for Ecological Transition (Ademe), the Centre for Expertise on Risks, Environment, Mobility and Planning (Cerema) and the Banque des Territoires. "The confinement has generated very effective modes of communication that communities of communes have seizedThe communities of communes have taken up the issue, according to the procedures specific to each regional unit led by the State", says Isabelle Mesnard, France Mobilités project director at Cerema. Among its recent contributions to the appropriation of the new inter-municipal competence, the Ademe cites its guide "Developing the bicycle system in the territories", published in March. At the same time, the agency has been reissuing since 2018 its calls for expressions of interest (AMI) intended for territories of experimentation for new sustainable mobilities (Tenmod) with two objectives: "Planning and experimentation", summarizes Jérémie Almosni, head of the Transport and Mobilities department.

To support the new AOMs, the Banque des Territoires asked a group of students from the Essec chair of urban economics to answer this question: "What alternatives to the individual car in sparsely populated areas? "The guide resulting from this reflection "lists affordable solutions, through the prism of archetypal territories, from the rural areas lacking in centrality to the outskirts of the metropolises, via areas that are not very dense.tropoles through spaces that connect several agglomerations without being part of them," summarizes Pierre Aubouin, director of the Infrastructure Investment and Mobility Department at the Banque des territoires.

Jacobinism versus Balkanization. The still unofficial feedback, after the March 31 deadline, shows a clear deficit of the South of France in the creation of AOMs, especially Occitania, New Aquitaine and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. "In a Jacobin reflex on the scale of their territory, some regional councils have gone as far as a kind of blackmail that does not conform to the spirit of the law: I offer you an intermodality package on condition that you do not take over the competence", insists a member of the cabinet of the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion. As provided for in the law, the regions will exercise the competence where the communities of communes have not requested it.

Occitania claims this direct exercise in the name of the fight against the "balkanization of the mobility competence", between its 4,500 communes, its 120 public establishments of intercommunal cooperation (EPCI) and its 13 departments : "Open to all EPCIs every third Thursday of the month, the departmental committees have drawn up an inventory of the situation and formulated proposals that enable progress to be made in defining mobility basins "says Jean-Luc Gibelin, vice-president of the region in charge of mobility and infrastructures, but also president of the first regional grouping of transport authorities (Gart regional). On the other side of the country, "Burgundy-Franche-Comté has been mobilised since the month following the promulgation of the LOM, to promote its application through a series of departmental meetings that have led to the creation of a regional transport authority.partemental meetings that led to the deliberation of June 2020, setting the perimeters of the 22 rural mobility basins", explains the first vice-president of the regional council Michel Neugnot. In the wake of this, a contractualization with the departments presides over the implementation of the regional scheme of carpooling which concerns 200 areas, half of which remain to be built.

Other than car-sharing, the major change concerns cycling and its integration into multimodal systems, under the combined effects of the LOM, the 2018-2024 national cycling plan and the health crisis. Even if the AOM competence targets services and not infrastructure, it will nonetheless be a powerful accelerator, including in territories starting from scratch like the Mont des Avaloirs community of municipalities (16,000 inhabitants, 26 municipalities in Mayenne). While the modal share of cycling in commuting to work stands at 1% on its territory, it finalized its master plan at the end of June, thanks to the support released in 2018 by France Mobilities.

The big change concerns the bicycle and its integration into multimodal systems

In the wake of this, the establishment chose on February 25 to acquire the optional competence. "By systematizing the accessibility of the four centrality poles within 5 km, the improvementnagement would cover two-thirds of the trips potentially transferable to bicycles," summarizes Cyril Couroussé, project manager at the community.

Accident black spots. With an appetite for two routes included in the national scheme of cycle routes crossing its territory, the Mad-et-Moselle community of municipalities (20,600 inhabitants, 48 municipalities in Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle) has eThe community of communes of Mad-et-Moselle (20,600 inhabitants, 48 communes in Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle) has also made cycling a central concern since its creation in 2017, followed quickly by the assumption of responsibility for the AOM. In 2022, the construction of the bicycle bridge over the Moselle between Corny and Novéant will secure an accident-prone passage on the V50 cycle route (north-south Moselle-Saône link).

Removing black spots for cycle continuity and connecting local needs with national cycle routes are also at the heart of the concerns of a new AOM: the community of communes of Chinon Vienne et Loire (25,000 inhabitants, 19 communes in Indre-et-Loire), the 2020 winner of the Ademe's Tenmod call for projects, deliberated in this sense on March 16 (see box opposite). "Only kamikazes ride bicycles on the bridge that crosses the Loire, near the nuclear power plant in Chinon," laments Monique Chaye, director of economic and territorial development of the community. After the inventory drawn up by Egis, the next consultation on the bicycle scheme and the simplified mobility plan - a flexible procedure provided for by the LOM - will set the community's argument in the upcoming negotiations with the department, which owns the viaduct.

Waiting territories. From the banks of the Loire to those of the Moselle, the effervescence of rural intercommunities to decarbonize mobility does not contradict the prognosis of Michel Neugnot. "There will be no big night after the birth of the new AOMs. It will take five to ten years to define and implement the projects," says the vice-president of Régions de France. No doubt the eradication of the white zones of green mobility will also require new administrative steps: despite the irreversibility of the 31 March 2021 deadline, the law opens the door to a new wave of AOMs which, in the future, may arise from inter-municipal mergers or changes in the status of mixed transport unions. The Assembly of French Communities identifies a significant number of territories that have put themselves in a waiting position, before putting their wheels in those of the pioneers.

Source: www.lemoniteur.fr/


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