Faced with enormous urban challenges, the car’s reign seems to come to an end in European cities, urban mobility becoming more and more “gentle” and active. The canton of Geneva, aiming to cut off 40% of individual motorised transportation by 2030, is developing “greenways” (voies vertes), completed by “axes forts” (main ways). The role of these greenways, and the way they are conceptualised, trigger numerous debates. How can these greenways promote modal shift as much as possible, be as inclusive as possible, and create spaces of daily life in neighborhoods? Should pedestrians and cyclists be separated or not? Should the greenways be cycle super-highways or public spaces? Encourage speed or slowness?

In cities where efficiency, fluidity and velocity are often a goal, should gentle mobility, more precisely the greenways, systematically aim to do the same? Or, in opposition, could the greenways initiate a shift on the question of speed and urban rhythm, slowing it down?

This paper starts with a historical perspective allowing to understand the dynamics surrounding (gentle) mobility. Through the analysis of a precise context (Geneva and the Bernex – Bâtie greenway) and semi-structured interviews, a stress is made on the question of speed, in order to outline answers to the questions surrounding the greenways projects.