Paris Offers Sweet Incentives to Ditch Your Car for a Bike

[Ross]

https://www.bicycling.com/culture/paris ... -subsidies

Wouldn't it be nice if Oz govt did something similiar instead of discouraging cycling with poor/no infastructure and massive fines for minor cycling infringements like riding sans helmet

Paris will begin to offer hefty tax incentives for residents who buy e-bikes and cargo bikes, or who otherwise ditch their cars in favor of cycling and other forms of transportation.

Subsidies on the table include: up to €400 ($495) for e-bike purchases; €600 ($744) toward both electric and conventional cargo bikes; and €400 for residents who upgrade their conventional bikes with electrical assists. Each subsidy applies to only one bike per person.

The city will also offer €600 for residents who get rid of their personal cars. Furthermore, any Parisian obtaining their driver’s license will also get a €50 ($62) credit toward Vélib', the city’s bike-share program.

These subsidies come after Mayor Anne Hidalgo went on the record last fall saying she wants the city to ban diesel cars by 2024—the year Paris will host the Summer Olympics—and rid itself of all gas-powered cars by 2030. Her vision: a city where residents get around only by bike, public transit, and electric vehicles.

Paris had previously offered residents more than $11,000 USD to swap their gas-powered cars for electric ones. It’s also in the midst of a plan to add about 50 miles of bike lanes and some 10,000 bicycle parking spaces around the city by 2020.

[Dreams V Reallity]

If only...

[HenryCharlie]

I'd be happy if we had the UK's Cycle To Work Scheme.

[g-boaf]

...

Your user name is my response to this subject regarding what happens here. Just seemed so appropriate.

I don't even think a scheme like this needs to specifically give subsidies for electrified bikes or conversions to that sort of thing. Just get people on whatever bikes they have and give them the infrastructure to ride on that will make them feel safe. Be it lanes on the road, off-road interconnected cycleways, or even just getting less traffic on the road so people feel safe to use it, that must be better than the situation we have now.

Paris is obviously making steps, and another city that has done a lot for riders is Innsbruck:



That's a video Christine Oppitz-Plörer (Mayor, Innsbruck) showed us last year.

The video isn't just made-up marketing, the city really is like that. It is a city that is well thought out for living. It's easy to get around the city as a rider. It is of course a smaller city that our capitals obviously, but they've got the balance right. In terms of infrastructure, there isn't anything super special they have done. Everything they've done wouldn't be particularly difficult to do here in our cities too, it just takes determination/resolve. We are also more fortunate in that parts of our cities are not anywhere near as hilly as Innsbruck is, that city has some roads that are very steep, and yet you see locals there riding their bikes with backpacks on, panniers, etc without complaint.

[Jmuzz]

Things like secure parking and shower/change facilities would be a bigger benefit at this stage I think. Showers don't need to be free just reasonable.

Eg a cage shed with registered Opal card (NSW, substitute interstate) access, cameras, keeps out the rif-raf. This is happening around Sydney train stations, just needs to continue and expand and get them at shops and CBD.

More proper bike rails under a camera.

Provide an incentive for buildings and workplaces to provide parking and changing facilities. Eg land tax and council rate rebate on land allocated to that purpose.

Bikes are making themselves popular and more paths are rolling out. But the looming crisis is bicycle parking. The mighty car still owns all the parking and bikes are left to get their spokes kicked by Australia's vandalism culture on footpaths.