La Rochelle, a cycling city where life is good

It "invented" the self-service bicycle, was the first to propose pedestrian streets and the Car Free Day: a forerunner in all these ecological actions, La Rochelle continues to favour quality of life. And it's doing well...

280 km of cycling facilities, more than half of which are dedicated lanes, 1 million euros of investment in new lanes, 105 self-service stations equipped with 620 mechanical bicycles and 140 electric bicycles, 625,000 bicycle rentals, 12 secure bike parks in operation: it is no coincidence that La Rochelle was ranked first in its category (medium-sized city) in the list of cycling cities by the FUB (French Federation of Bicycle Users) in 2022. With this first place, La Rochelle has once again been rewarded for its ambitious policy in terms of sustainable mobility and urban ecology, in particular to develop the use of bicycles.

This year, our maritime city is also part of the list of winners published for the fourth consecutive year by the association "Villes et villages où il fait bon vivre". Based on nearly 200 criteria divided into 9 categories (quality of life, safety, health, shops and services, transport, education, sports and leisure, solidarity, real estate attractiveness), the study, which covers 34,820 towns in mainland France, places La Rochelle 5th among French towns with more than 2,000 inhabitants where life is good, ahead of Angers, Bayonne, Biarritz and Anglet. Underlining the vitality of the Rochelle area, this position in the hexagonal "Top 5" reinforces its tourist appeal. And it should make you want to stay here even more, in "beautiful holiday" and "pure pleasure" mode.