19 ms·

Paris city centre goes car-free for a day

233 points by hliyan 11y ago

MichaelGG 11y ago
Would not having cars in the small centre actually clear up smog in a couple of hours? I would suspect that changes in weather (wind/rain) would have a far greater impact on air pollution. Along with the notes of happy people, I'd imagine this is more a psychological effect. Cities do seem pretty neat without cars (judging from when I've been out during crises and there's been no other traffic). Also: "emboldened to cycle in from the eastern edge of the city without a helmet" - I'm not sure, but are cars a massively dominating factor in bicycle safety? I'd imagine there's still risks, like hitting someone, or a curb, where a helmet might come in life-saving.
- tajen 11y ago
  There is a lot of controversy on whether helmets save lives. First, "it is impossible to build a cycle helmet that will offer significant impact protection" [1]. In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. Second, countries which have made the helmet mandatory have seen a decrease of cyclism and an increase of obesity and heart diseases, to the point that it increases the global mortality [2]. This may sound very disturbing if you come from a country where helmets are mandatory. In France, they are not. In case you wonder, there are also stories (albeit probably less than unanimous) that cycling at the red light is safer. It is my personal belief that I'd never go ahead when it's green for the cars in my city (Lyon), but it's much more controversial. Some cities (like Paris[3] allow jumping the red light). Finally, many European countries, including London and Paris, have developed bike stations (take a bike, 1.50€ for a 24hrs card, with deposit). Making helmets mandatory would be a problem. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jun/15/healthandwellbeing.health1 http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jun/15/healthan... [2] http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_statistics.html http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_statistics.html [3] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33773868 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33773868
  - yitchelle 11y ago
    > There is a lot of controversy on whether helmets save lives. First, "it is impossible to build a cycle helmet that will offer significant impact protection" [1]. In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. The problem is that most people think helmet is there to safe lives. It is not. It is there to protect you from head injuries. If you are in a bike accident, you are more likely to be seriously injured from other damaged such a broken leg or serious bruising to the torso. I wear a helmet when commuting to work, but I have my doubts if it will save my life if have a big accident with a car.
  - batiudrami 11y ago
    >In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. Do more or less than 80% of cyclists wear a helmet? That stat is worthless without qualification (in my experience the vast majority of people in Australia wear helmets, especially when cycling on the road). Not that I disagree with your general point; for the moment I am undecided.
    - tajen 11y ago
      It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury. I just wanted to point out that there is controversy, I don't however have the definitive answer about red lights and helmets.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury. Yes, being humans, they would.
      - mehwoot 11y ago
        It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury Because it's compulsory to wear helmets.
      - batiudrami 11y ago
        If 95% of cyclists wear helmets (that would be my guess, at least when cycling on the road) and only 80% of fatalities happen with a helmet then it would seem to me that helmets are very effective - which is why you need to qualify the statistic.
- deleted 11y ago
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- lsc 11y ago
  >Also: "emboldened to cycle in from the eastern edge of the city without a helmet" - I'm not sure, but are cars a massively dominating factor in bicycle safety? I'd imagine there's still risks, like hitting someone, or a curb, where a helmet might come in life-saving. There are still risks, but serious cycling injuries and deaths are massively dominated by bycycle-car interactions. Theory being that on a bike... I'm usually going under 20mph, So the force involved in a single-vehicle crash is whatever energy that 20mph imparts to my 200lbs of flesh, rubber, carbon and aluminum. Yeah, it can kill you, but usually doesn't. If you are hit by a car, first, the thing is quite often going faster than 20mph, and the mass involved is at least one order of magnitude greater. That's a lot more energy to dissipate into the soft and crunchy cyclist. cars make the roads very dangerous for anyone not in a car. All that said, I personally wear a full-face helmet on my commute, even though nearly all of it is on a nearly empty mixed-use path that prohibits cars. Yes, without cars, helmet or no, I'm a lot less likely to die. But even if the energy involved is all my own, I'd much rather crash while wering a serious helmet than with a bare head. I use a bell super 2r mips, and I keep the chinbar on. I've already had one accident (as a child, colliding with another bicycle) where I landed on my helmet and my front teeth. Fortunately for me, I kind of had a bugs bunny thing going, and so the Dentist just evened out the jagged bits of my front teeth, and my mouth probably ended up looking better for it, but yeah, I'd rather not repeat that. I don't think the chinbar is likely to save my life; the jaw provides a reasonable crumple-zone to protect the brain if the jaw hits first, but the chinbar will save me, in case of a crash where I land on my chin, a whole lot of pain, medical expense, and possibly missed work. My general attitude is that a helmet isn't that big of a deal to wear, and it significantly decreases the seriousness of injuries I might receive while cycling. Further, if I am going to bother to wear the helmet (most of the cost is in the inconvenience of carrying it, for me. For most people, there's a cost in terms of style, but I'm wearing cargo shorts already.) I don't see any reason to buy any but the most protective helmet that I can get that doesn't interfere with my cycling (for example, it needs adequate ventilation; thus you don't see me busting out my arai) - You can get a real top-end bicycle helmet for two hundred bucks; Considering what medical care costs, one crash is gonna pay for a lifetime of really nice helmets. To be clear, this is what I do to protect my head, (and my face) - I don't mean to tell other people what they should do with their head.
- jakobegger 11y ago
  All biking accidents that I've heard of involve cars. In the city, the most dangerous things are driving next to parked cars (people open doors without looking) and crowded intersections (cars turn without looking). On the country side, the most dangerous thing are cars passing cyclists without sufficient distance. Drivers are really bad at estimating the distance of their side mirror to cyclists. Anyway, that's anectotal evidence from the handful of serious accidents that people I know had. Personally I've been lucky so far.
  - dijit 11y ago
    >In the city, the most dangerous things are driving next to parked cars (people open doors without looking) and crowded intersections (cars turn without looking). fucking hell, I remember I was cycling to the gym in London.. CS2 on whitechapel road going west from Bow to Queen Mary university (uni gym) and as I'm cycling, in the cycle lane, with my lights on.. some lads open the rear door of their Mercedes just in time for me to crash into the edge of it. traffic was stalled so it's not like just he was stopped.. that hurt.. please look when you open your doors drivers.
    - vidarh 11y ago
      I used to work with someone in London who was on a motorcycle just as a cabbie opened his door right into the road right in front of him. According to witnesses (he has no recollection of this himself), he flew over the door, went head first into the road, stood up and started yelling abuse at the cabbie, and then promptly fell unconscious and collapsed. He got away without any serious injury thankfully. Cycles are scary enough for me here - I don't know how anyone dare ride motorcycles in London.
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      Yeah, as a new driver I don't get why people don't do this - it is not even difficult, as the car has mirrors.
  - mollmerx 11y ago
    I agree that doors of parked cars in cities may be a frequent and painful source of cycling accidents. They are not, however, the most dangerous. The most dangerous source of accidents for cyclists in cities is from passing turning HGVs (trucks) on the inside. The majority of cycling fatalities in London are caused this way every year. Fortunately these accidents are avoidable through education of both cyclists and drivers, which is more important than wearing a helmet.
- revelation 11y ago
  Cars are a massively dominating factor in every traffic safety situation. The number of deaths from bicycle and pedestrian collisions (so, any collision not involving a ton of metal) is on the order of a single death every few years, and it generally involves people that (for lack of a better description) are at a point in life where any injury, just a fall, is very much life-threatening. The key to reducing traffic deaths is to not have multi-ton cars with power in excess of 50kW crash into squishy humans. There is no amount of polystyrene in the world to diminish the forces involved here.
- livatlantis 11y ago
  As a cyclist in Paris, yes, I'd say the presence (and domination) of cars is a BIG reason I feel less safe. I have friends from other cities who grew up biking but who don't dare get on one the excellent bikeshare Vélib bikes to get around because they're afraid of being hit. But cars are just one piece in the puzzle; I think what's worse is the psychological atmosphere: the stress, the having to always be on the lookout and, oddly, the lack of civility. I've approached trucks and cars parked on the bike lane to ask them if they could move just a little to the so bikes don't have to swerve around them and enter the flow of car traffic. I do so politely, making sure to not adopt a defensive/aggressive attitude. In a few rare cases, the driver had been genuinely unaware and apologized and moved. In most cases though, I'm insulted and told, "vous me faites chier !" (something along the lines of "You're pissing me off!"). I was once even told by a genleman on a scooter that, "If you want to ride your bike, why don't you just go to the countryside?" If you're on a bike, cars, scooters and motorbikes will constantly remind you that you're not welcome. Try explaining to a car that he's parked on the "sas vélo", that little space reserved for bikes in front of traffic lights. Or explaining to cars that when they turn right and through a bike lane, that it's common courtesy to signal the turn (instead of suddenly turning and shouting at bikes for being in their way). It's a problem of education, too. Cyclists aren't all innocent, either. I've seen people on bikes not stop for pedestrians even when they have right of way. Pedestrians, who are understandably annoyed and probably used to no one looking out for them, also do stupid things like cross when it's red even as they see a bike approaching fast downhill. (This actually happened to me; she apologized when I had to slam my brakes, as did the car behind me. What was odd was that she actually stopped before crossing, saw that the light was red for her and green for cars and bikes, that we were approaching and started crossing anyway. And this isn't an isolated incident, I experience this at least two or three times per week). So, it's a very unhealthy environment where everybody feels no one respects their rights. But cars are by far the biggest reason Paris feels unsafe (even though it really isn't once you get the hang of it). I ride without a helmet but recently got a Hövding (the portably bike airbag from Sweden) to test in the city and wrote a review of it[1]. Mine actually went of accidentally, but I thing they're very, very promising. Not least because of how much more effective they are at oblique, non-perpendicular impacts. [1]: http://www.neustadt.fr/reviews/testing-hovding-invisible-helmet/ http://www.neustadt.fr/reviews/testing-hovding-invisible-hel...
- SixSigma 11y ago
  I was recently in Delft, NL - I saw hundreds of cyclists - only 5 or so with helmets and they were children / in lycra. Nor gloves. In the UK I always wear both. It is the environment that makes the difference. People in Delft are not going 20mph like I do. They are casually cycling from one part of town to another in their normal clothes.
- jrock08 11y ago
  Cars are absolutely a dominating factor in biker safety. In NYC in 2012 and 2013 there were 7766 injuries and 30 fatalities of bikers reported which involved cars as compared to 537 injuries and 3 fatalities of bikers which did not involve cars. See page 2 for source: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash-data-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash... http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash-data-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash...
HSO 11y ago
Sorry for the wall of text but this passage from Kundera [1] always comes to mind when I realize (or remember) that noise, somehow, is taken for granted by most people I know: I complain, and they say "stop whining". But it is extraordinary and should not be accepted as a "fact of life". Here's to hope that events like this will make more people aware of that. “Another visit to Prague after 1989. From a friend’s bookcase I happen to pull out a book by Jaromir John, a Czech novelist of the period between the wars. The book is long forgotten; it is called The Internal-Combustion Monster, and I read it for the first time that day. Written around 1932, it tells a story set about ten years earlier, during the first years of the Czechoslovak Republic that was proclaimed in 1918. A Mr. Engelbert, a forestry official in the old regime of the Hapsburg monarchy, moves to Prague to live out his retirement years; but coming up against the aggressive modernity of the young state, he has one disappointment after another. A highly familiar situation. One “aspect, though, is brand new: for Mr. Engelbert the horror of this modern world, the curse, is not the power of money or the arrogance of the arrivistes, it is the noise; and not the age-old noise of a thunderstorm or a hammer, but the new noise of engines, especially of automobiles and motorcycles, the explosive “internal-combustion monsters.” Poor Mr. Engelbert: first he settles in a house in a residential neighborhood; there cars are his first introduction to the evil that will turn his life into an unending flight. He moves to another neighborhood, pleased to see that cars are forbidden entry to his street. Unaware that the prohibition is only temporary, he is exasperated at night when he hears the “internal-combustion monsters” roaring again beneath his window. From then on he never goes to bed without cotton in his ears, realizing that “sleeping is the most basic human desire and that death caused by the impossibility of sleep must be the worst death there is.” He goes to seek silence in country inns (in vain), in provincial cities in the houses of onetime colleagues (in vain), and ends up spending his nights in trains, which “, with their gentle archaic noise, provide him with a slumber that is relatively peaceful in his life as a beleaguered man. When John wrote his novel, Prague had probably one car to every hundred inhabitants or, I don’t know, perhaps to every thousand. It is precisely when it was still rare that the phenomenon of noise (motor noise) stood out in all its astonishing newness. We can deduce a general rule: the existential import of a social phenomenon is most sharply perceptible not as it expands but when it is just beginning, incomparably fainter than it will soon become. Nietzsche remarks that in the sixteenth century nowhere in the world was the Church less corrupt than in Germany and that was the reason the Reformation started precisely there, because the mere “beginnings of corruption were felt to be intolerable.” Bureaucracy in Kafka’s time was an innocent babe compared to today, and yet it was Kafka who revealed its monstrous nature, which since then has become routine and no longer commands anyone’s interest. In the 1960s brilliant philosophers subjected the “consumer society” to a critique that over the years has been so cartoonishly outstripped by reality that we are embarrassed “to refer to it. For we must recall another general rule: reality is utterly unashamed to repeat itself, but confronted with reality’s repetition, thought always ends by falling silent. In 1920 Mr. Engelbert was still astonished by the noise of the “internal-combustion monsters”; the generations that followed found it natural; after initially horrifying man, sickening him, noise gradually reshaped him; through its omnipresence and its permanence it ultimately instilled in him the need for noise, and with that, a whole different relation to nature, to repose, to joy, to beauty, to music (which, now become an uninterrupted background of sound, has lost its char“acter as art) and even speech (which no longer holds a privileged position in the world of sounds). In the history of existence this was a change so profound, so enduring, that no war or revolution can produce its like; a change whose beginnings Jaromir John modestly noted and described. I say “modestly” because John was one of those novelists called “minor”; still, great or small, he was a real novelist; he was not just copying truths stitched on the curtain of preinterpretation; he had the Cervantes-like courage to tear the curtain. Let’s take Mr. Engelbert out of the novel and imagine him as a real man who sets about writing his autobiography; no, it is nothing like John’s novel! For, like most of his ilk, Mr. Engelbert is accustomed to judging life according to what can be read on that curtain hanging in front of the world; he knows that the phenomenon of noise, however disagreeable it is for him, does not deserve interest. But freedom, independence, democracy—or, seen from the opposite angle, capitalism, exploitation, inequality—yes, oh a hundred times yes! Now, those are serious notions, they can give a life meaning, render a misfortune “noble! Thus, in his autobiography, which I envision him writing with cotton stuffed in his ears, he grants great significance to the recovered independence of his homeland, and he rails at the selfishness of the arrivistes; as for those “internal-combustion monsters,” he has relegated them to the bottom of the page, a mere mention of a trivial annoyance that, in the end, is rather amusing. PS: Much like Mr. Engelbert, I resorted to ear plugs, going through all the varieties of it as well as noise canceling headphones. Since about 1.5 years now, I use custom-fitted silicone earplugs and they are amazing. Each ear canal is shaped differently, even "within" the same person from side to side, and a custom fitting makes earplugs most agreeable to wear. I highly recommend this if you suffer from a "too noisy world" like me. They are expensive but the fit and apparent durability make them worth it. One of the best investments in my sanity I've made (so far). _________________________ [1] M. Kundera. The Curtain (Le rideau). Harper Perennial, 2005.
gbugniot 11y ago
I don't know if it's the case too in other countries, but here in France, there are more and more cities which go car-free during a day each month. Most of the time, these car-free events occurs in the historical downtown of big cities, and there are generally appreciated.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Some people complained (on some French newspaper website) about bikes being reckless. Personally, seeing empty boulevards and people walking in all direction is making my heart rate slow down. I'm becoming car anxious...
  - palunon 11y ago
    We're French... If we can't complain about cars, we have to find something else to complain about...
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      That's limiting, France is also a country with a big poetic history, let's focus on that part :)
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  I remember car free Sundays when visiting Quito in Ecuador last year, though I think it was only part of the city. Would like to see it take off all around the world, I think it could do a lot of good.
veddox 11y ago
Never having been to Paris, I am surprised that it doesn't seem to have a car-free inner city anyway (correct me if I'm wrong). I find this one day already a great idea, but why not make it permanent? Almost ever city here in Germany has what we call the "Fußgängerzone" - pedestrians-only zone - in the town center. It makes for a very pleasant atmosphere when you don't have to watch out for cars all the time, and that part of town looks a lot more attractive for it. (Often you will find this area is located in the oldest part of town, so you get to admire all the old buildings even better.)
- gbugniot 11y ago
  There are some pedestrians-only areas in Paris : http://en.parisinfo.com/discovering-paris/themed-guides/paris-outdoors/open-air-outings/pedestrian-areas http://en.parisinfo.com/discovering-paris/themed-guides/pari...
- netrus 11y ago
  Paris does have Fußgängerzonen as well (around Les Halles for example, in La Defance, Latin Quarter ...) but this is a huge city. Only Berlin comes close, and there are cars all around Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, Ku'Damm ... But I agree, Paris would clearly benefit from a no car zone from Rivoli to maybe Luxemburg. The roads are too small for serious car traffic anyway.
  - bwohlergo 11y ago
    "... Paris is a huge city. Only Berlin comes close, ..." yeah, right Paris: 2,241,346 (2014) Berlin: 3,562,166 (2014)
    - Symbiote 11y ago
      Population by administrative area is irrelevant. "Comparing urban areas in the European Union, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the EU, places Paris (6.5 million people) second behind London (8 million) and ahead of Berlin (3.5 million), based on the 2012 populations of what Eurostat calls "urban audit core cities"." — Wikipedia.
nmc 11y ago
Here is a map showing (in dark green) the areas where roads were closed for motorized vehicles: https://api-site.paris.fr/images/74176 https://api-site.paris.fr/images/74176
awjr 11y ago
What I think this demonstrates is something that a lot of cities are waking up to. The car is not a friend of the urban landscape. A lot of cities are now prioritising walking/cycling/public transport over the ability to drive anywhere and everywhere and this is having a profound effect on health and well being of their residents. It is hard though. Events like this show what is possible.
- andys627 11y ago
  Totally agree. Helps to point out how much we've been subsidizing personal auto use - mainly by not charging user fees enough to cover all costs of driving.
  - awjr 11y ago
    That's the thing. In the UK the cost to the NHS (UK Free Healthcare) is not costed into the price people pay at the fuel pump. I believe revenue from Car Tax/Fuel/VAT is about £48 billion, however the cost to the country is calculated at about £70 billion.
    - jedrek 11y ago
      + 28 billion quid spent on roads.
    - dalke 11y ago
      The calculation isn't so simple. The use of cars may enable additional business. If that leads to an additional £50 billion in tax revenue, then it would be worthwhile, from a bookkeeping perspective.
      - rsfern 11y ago
        On the other hand, more pedestrian traffic also may enable additional business, as people are more likely to wander in and out of shops, and they aren't competing for limited parking availability.
veddox 11y ago
Car-free days remind me of the car-free Sundays people tell me about from the 1973 oil-crisis. They used to go cycling on the motorways - wouldn't that be fun to do again?
- ido 11y ago
  Israel has 1 day per year where there's no car traffic anywhere in the country (yom kipur - no motorized transit of any kind, even trains). It's among some of my fondest memories of childhood, i wish we had something like that in Germany :) People indeed cycle, roller skate, and skateboard on the highways.
  - smonff 11y ago
    Looks like they made this "speedway without cars" thing in Montreuil (east suburb of Paris) during this event. For the 7th year... Montreuil is a much more progressive city than Paris. http://www.lavoieestlibre.org/#la-voie-est-libre http://www.lavoieestlibre.org/#la-voie-est-libre
- jlebrech 11y ago
  That would be amazing, motorways are nice and smooth.
jsumrall 11y ago
After spending lots of time in the Netherlands, where bikes and pedestrians are respected, it was a shock to see the situation in Paris when I was there this week. It felt like a car city. Roads sometimes took up a significant amount of space and the sidewalk was only wide enough for one person. Drivers also had such a lack of respect for bikes and pedestrians. It was at times frightening to try to use a crosswalk, as nobody would stop for the people trying to cross. Paris is much better than the states, but they have a lot of room for improvement.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  I think there are some cities in Europe - can't remember if Paris is one - in which road traffic can still cross on a green light for pedestrians, maybe only a left turn and if there is no-one crossing. Of course, "no-one" crossing is then taken with a pinch of salt by bullying drivers. This is definitely not the case in London, although traffic still has a tendency to go through red lights late.
  - glandium 11y ago
    You're thinking about a right turn on a red light, and it's not the case in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_turn_on_red https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_turn_on_red
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      Oh yes, for places that drive on the right, that obviously makes more sense! It might not be for the same reason, but I've definitely felt like drivers have 'more priority' over crossing pedestrians when in mainland Europe. Even on a pedestrian green light.
      - mootothemax 11y ago
        >Even on a pedestrian green light. Yup - here in Warsaw, that's way more of a give way signal than a stop, thanks to quite often drivers and pedestrians having a green light at the same time!
jmcomets 11y ago
A small shortcut in this article that I can't help to point out: > The Volkswagen scandal over emissions-rigging has increased pressure on the French government to act on car pollution. The current mayor of Paris has been taking actions like this one since she was instated. We regularly have to deal with "50 km/h max speed" measures and it has nothing to do with the VW rigging scandal. Small sidenote: > In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour. I'm not sure this is true, but I assure to you no one was driving 20 km/h in my neighbourhood. All in all this was a great opportunity to see the streets of Paris without any cars whatsoever.
- hvidgaard 11y ago
  The most annoying this about those speeds, is that a car is far more efficient at 50km/h, than at 20km/h.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    I suspect the point is to make it pointless to drive, when you can cycle at that speed anyway.
  - Piskvorrr 11y ago
    Except you are lucky if you can get even to 20 km/h in Paris, forget about 50 km/h. "Fluid traffic" is a red herring in such circumstances - those other cars always get in the way ;)
  - kilotaras 11y ago
    Also far more deadly.
  - shawn-furyan 11y ago
    The closed system of the car is more efficient. It's not clear that allowing cars to travel at speeds that makes it impossible for them to share roads with pedestrians is globally efficient. Really, allowing cars at all is a concession to global efficiency. In that light, one can see the benefit to abridging driver's generally assumed right to utterly dominate any place they aren't completely prohibited.
haser_au 11y ago
I was in Paris from Fri-Sun, and the difference between having cars and not having cars in the city centre was incredible. I've been to Paris a few times before, but the calm, lack of noise and general feeling of pedestrians was incredible. More cities should take the lead from Paris/Germany/etc. and reduce the number of vehicles in city centres.
pkaye 11y ago
Is the high air pollution due to population density or emissions technology (ie Diesel vs Petrol?) For example, I look up the pollution numbers for 2015 in California Bay Area and the strict California PM10 limits were exceeded for only 2 days in the year.* And California is known for being car crazy and we have had hot dry weather for some time now. * (http://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/air-quality-summaries http://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/air-quality-summarie...) BTW where do I find something similar for Paris?
- maelito 11y ago
  The proximity of the sea might be one reason. Check www.airparif.asso.fr for the numbers !
  - pkaye 11y ago
    That would make sense. In California, there is the Central Valley which is far from the ocean but lower population density and the pollution is much worse.
- weddpros 11y ago
  you can find current data at http://www.airparif.asso.fr/en/stations/index http://www.airparif.asso.fr/en/stations/index including pm10 measurements
czzarr 11y ago
This is the latest political stunt of the hipster left in power that doesn't care one bit for people who actually have things to do during their day, and only cares about tourists and skateboarders who go in circles in the very center of Paris. Tough luck if you come from far away for work, if you are old or handicapped, if you planned a day in the countryside with your family of four children, etc. Pollution is much lower when traffic is fluid, and recent road work and legislation have done nothing but help create huge congestions that drive pollution through the roof.
- Piskvorrr 11y ago
  "Pollution is much lower when traffic is fluid" - that's all very nice, but have you been to Paris recently? As in, within the last 50 years? On a usual day (i.e. one without a citywide car restriction), there's no such thing as "fluid traffic" there - you shuffle forward, meter by meter, in a massive traffic jam covering the city. Also, you are severely underestimating the public transport network - "if you come from far away for work," you have probably left your car at a train station and rode into the city on a RER or a Metro train. Same goes for the other objections, strange as it may seem to USians. In other words, your arguments seem to hinge on "if Paris were an American type of city, a citywide car ban would suck." Thankfully, it's not one (i.e. driving a car is an option, not a necessity).
  - czzarr 11y ago
    I've been living in Paris since 1997, so yes, I know what I'm talking about. I agree that on a usual day, there are massive traffic jams everywhere. That's because of the relentless resourcefulness with which the leftist mayors have been hindering car transportation in Paris, by constructing countless bus lanes, fake bike lanes, road bumps and other extravaganza. They have artfully managed to completely fuck up Paris traffic. "Driving a car is an option". We'll see when you are 80 years old and can't take the bus or subway alone. We'll see when you have to move after 1am. We'll see when you are disabled. We'll see when you have to move your children outside the city for sports for instance. Trains are all fine and dandy but they don't go door to door. Oh and btw: I'm young, single, without child, don't own a car and cycle everywhere. I'm just pissed off by all that hipster bullshit. Last thing: when actual real solutions to traffic problems such as Uber Pop arise, they are crushed by the government. See the hypocrisy now ?
lugus35 11y ago
L'oligarchie (dont fait partie Anne Hidalgo) continue de prendre le taxi, les riches bobos habitants de Paris peuvent, eux, prendre leur voiture. Les immigrés eux, vont dans le centre de Paris grâce aux transports en commun qui ont été financés par la France entière. Au delà des banlieues parisiennes, la France périphérique, blanche, qui est maintenue en dehors de Paris et sa Banlieue.
JoachimS 11y ago
To be pedantic, Paris has been car free for most of its history.
akramhussein 11y ago
I was in Paris this weekend-just-gone and sat on the bench on Sunday on Champs-Élysées watching all these people walking down the road. I thought it had always been like this. Then I saw the police at around 6pm start to ease it up and march in front of the cars to open the roads again and back to normal with cars beeping their horns and nearly hitting cyclists. Now it completely makes sense why that old French man sat next to me and wouldn't stop talking about the cars and pollution.
jstoja 11y ago
IMHO I just think that this retrospective isn't relevant. This measures have not had time to really show what it can do. I just think that the past windy and sunny days made the pollution go away. Not really representative of the result of such actions...
mtgx 11y ago
Instead of outright banning all cars, why not ban only the polluting ones, essentially allowing only EVs in cities? That would also accelerate the long-term goal of cleaning up the city of smog, which is what they're trying to do with these "no-car days", because people would dump their polluting cars faster. If the no-car days don't drive people to dump their cars too fast or at all, then these acts will be just symbolic anyway and won't have much effect on city pollution.
- upofadown 11y ago
  Pollution is only one of a long list of problems caused by cars in cities.
WalterBright 11y ago
I'd like to see some of streets in the city closed to cars during working hours. I've seen this in England, and it's quite nice.
tim333 11y ago
Maybe before too long much of the traffic could be replaced by self driving electric vehicles? The hardest part of traffic to deal with is probably trucks delivering goods and maybe those could be replaced by some unmanned electric things that trundle overnight.
kweks 11y ago
I was in Paris this weekend; it was great to be able to participate in this project. It was pleasant on multiple levels - the lack of traffic, absolutely, but also the sense of community and sense of belonging. There's definitely a feeling of 'taking back' your city when you can circulate freely. One of the most interesting aspects was that the road tunnels were also open. Paris has quite a few tunnel systems in the center of town, and most of these were available to stroll through, proving a unique insight into what is an oft-overlooked part of the city. That, and the ability to run / ride / skate through the system, made for a fun day. It's definitely something other cities could adapt
tgb 11y ago
Philadelphia had the roads in center city shut down this weekend for the pope's visit. As someone who has no car, it was glorious! I'd love to see it done on a regular basis, preferably without needing the national guard on every street corner.
- andrewl 11y ago
  I agree. The city felt so much more friendly. And it was quieter, too.
- lfam 11y ago
  I have lived here for four years. This was by far my favorite weekend ever in Philadelphia. The feeling of being able to walk around downtown, mingling with thousands of other people, and NEVER having to look over my shoulder make sure that I wasn't about to be crushed by 2 tons of speeding steel was indeed a glorious feeling. The local businesses suffered, but I'm sure that if the streetscape changed, the "business-scape" would, too.
jlebrech 11y ago
Well, the first time in 110 years.
caio1982 11y ago
I wonder what would be the political and economical cost to have such a car-free day at least once in, say, Manhattan. The landscape would probably look a bit alien even :-)
- et2o 11y ago
  I agree-Manhattan has far too many cars. I think they should shut down 1/2 of the avenues to car traffic a la Amsterdam.
greggyb 11y ago
Philadelphia recently did this. Your city can, too. Just bring the pope for a weekend.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  When the pope came to Rio de Janeiro recently they actually did the opposite and closed the metro for a week, the mind still boggles at the reasoning.
hyperion2010 11y ago
A link that might be of interest [0]. I haven't read the book, but this guy put a lot of thought into what it would take. 0. http://www.carfree.com/ http://www.carfree.com/
ocschwar 11y ago
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem go car free eery Yom Kippur. Driving ends at sunset, and you can feel and smell the difference within the first hour.

233 points by hliyan 11y ago

Would not having cars in the small centre actually clear up smog in a couple of hours? I would suspect that changes in weather (wind/rain) would have a far greater impact on air pollution. Along with the notes of happy people, I'd imagine this is more a psychological effect. Cities do seem pretty neat without cars (judging from when I've been out during crises and there's been no other traffic). Also: "emboldened to cycle in from the eastern edge of the city without a helmet" - I'm not sure, but are cars a massively dominating factor in bicycle safety? I'd imagine there's still risks, like hitting someone, or a curb, where a helmet might come in life-saving.

tajen 11y ago
There is a lot of controversy on whether helmets save lives. First, "it is impossible to build a cycle helmet that will offer significant impact protection" [1]. In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. Second, countries which have made the helmet mandatory have seen a decrease of cyclism and an increase of obesity and heart diseases, to the point that it increases the global mortality [2]. This may sound very disturbing if you come from a country where helmets are mandatory. In France, they are not. In case you wonder, there are also stories (albeit probably less than unanimous) that cycling at the red light is safer. It is my personal belief that I'd never go ahead when it's green for the cars in my city (Lyon), but it's much more controversial. Some cities (like Paris[3] allow jumping the red light). Finally, many European countries, including London and Paris, have developed bike stations (take a bike, 1.50€ for a 24hrs card, with deposit). Making helmets mandatory would be a problem. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jun/15/healthandwellbeing.health1 http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/jun/15/healthan... [2] http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_statistics.html http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_statistics.html [3] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33773868 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33773868
- yitchelle 11y ago
  > There is a lot of controversy on whether helmets save lives. First, "it is impossible to build a cycle helmet that will offer significant impact protection" [1]. In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. The problem is that most people think helmet is there to safe lives. It is not. It is there to protect you from head injuries. If you are in a bike accident, you are more likely to be seriously injured from other damaged such a broken leg or serious bruising to the torso. I wear a helmet when commuting to work, but I have my doubts if it will save my life if have a big accident with a car.
- batiudrami 11y ago
  >In Australia, 80% of cyclist death happen with a helmet. Do more or less than 80% of cyclists wear a helmet? That stat is worthless without qualification (in my experience the vast majority of people in Australia wear helmets, especially when cycling on the road). Not that I disagree with your general point; for the moment I am undecided.
  - tajen 11y ago
    It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury. I just wanted to point out that there is controversy, I don't however have the definitive answer about red lights and helmets.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury. Yes, being humans, they would.
    - mehwoot 11y ago
      It mostly means cyclists also die from other causes than head injury Because it's compulsory to wear helmets.
    - batiudrami 11y ago
      If 95% of cyclists wear helmets (that would be my guess, at least when cycling on the road) and only 80% of fatalities happen with a helmet then it would seem to me that helmets are very effective - which is why you need to qualify the statistic.
deleted 11y ago
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lsc 11y ago
>Also: "emboldened to cycle in from the eastern edge of the city without a helmet" - I'm not sure, but are cars a massively dominating factor in bicycle safety? I'd imagine there's still risks, like hitting someone, or a curb, where a helmet might come in life-saving. There are still risks, but serious cycling injuries and deaths are massively dominated by bycycle-car interactions. Theory being that on a bike... I'm usually going under 20mph, So the force involved in a single-vehicle crash is whatever energy that 20mph imparts to my 200lbs of flesh, rubber, carbon and aluminum. Yeah, it can kill you, but usually doesn't. If you are hit by a car, first, the thing is quite often going faster than 20mph, and the mass involved is at least one order of magnitude greater. That's a lot more energy to dissipate into the soft and crunchy cyclist. cars make the roads very dangerous for anyone not in a car. All that said, I personally wear a full-face helmet on my commute, even though nearly all of it is on a nearly empty mixed-use path that prohibits cars. Yes, without cars, helmet or no, I'm a lot less likely to die. But even if the energy involved is all my own, I'd much rather crash while wering a serious helmet than with a bare head. I use a bell super 2r mips, and I keep the chinbar on. I've already had one accident (as a child, colliding with another bicycle) where I landed on my helmet and my front teeth. Fortunately for me, I kind of had a bugs bunny thing going, and so the Dentist just evened out the jagged bits of my front teeth, and my mouth probably ended up looking better for it, but yeah, I'd rather not repeat that. I don't think the chinbar is likely to save my life; the jaw provides a reasonable crumple-zone to protect the brain if the jaw hits first, but the chinbar will save me, in case of a crash where I land on my chin, a whole lot of pain, medical expense, and possibly missed work. My general attitude is that a helmet isn't that big of a deal to wear, and it significantly decreases the seriousness of injuries I might receive while cycling. Further, if I am going to bother to wear the helmet (most of the cost is in the inconvenience of carrying it, for me. For most people, there's a cost in terms of style, but I'm wearing cargo shorts already.) I don't see any reason to buy any but the most protective helmet that I can get that doesn't interfere with my cycling (for example, it needs adequate ventilation; thus you don't see me busting out my arai) - You can get a real top-end bicycle helmet for two hundred bucks; Considering what medical care costs, one crash is gonna pay for a lifetime of really nice helmets. To be clear, this is what I do to protect my head, (and my face) - I don't mean to tell other people what they should do with their head.
jakobegger 11y ago
All biking accidents that I've heard of involve cars. In the city, the most dangerous things are driving next to parked cars (people open doors without looking) and crowded intersections (cars turn without looking). On the country side, the most dangerous thing are cars passing cyclists without sufficient distance. Drivers are really bad at estimating the distance of their side mirror to cyclists. Anyway, that's anectotal evidence from the handful of serious accidents that people I know had. Personally I've been lucky so far.
- dijit 11y ago
  >In the city, the most dangerous things are driving next to parked cars (people open doors without looking) and crowded intersections (cars turn without looking). fucking hell, I remember I was cycling to the gym in London.. CS2 on whitechapel road going west from Bow to Queen Mary university (uni gym) and as I'm cycling, in the cycle lane, with my lights on.. some lads open the rear door of their Mercedes just in time for me to crash into the edge of it. traffic was stalled so it's not like just he was stopped.. that hurt.. please look when you open your doors drivers.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    I used to work with someone in London who was on a motorcycle just as a cabbie opened his door right into the road right in front of him. According to witnesses (he has no recollection of this himself), he flew over the door, went head first into the road, stood up and started yelling abuse at the cabbie, and then promptly fell unconscious and collapsed. He got away without any serious injury thankfully. Cycles are scary enough for me here - I don't know how anyone dare ride motorcycles in London.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    Yeah, as a new driver I don't get why people don't do this - it is not even difficult, as the car has mirrors.
- mollmerx 11y ago
  I agree that doors of parked cars in cities may be a frequent and painful source of cycling accidents. They are not, however, the most dangerous. The most dangerous source of accidents for cyclists in cities is from passing turning HGVs (trucks) on the inside. The majority of cycling fatalities in London are caused this way every year. Fortunately these accidents are avoidable through education of both cyclists and drivers, which is more important than wearing a helmet.
revelation 11y ago
Cars are a massively dominating factor in every traffic safety situation. The number of deaths from bicycle and pedestrian collisions (so, any collision not involving a ton of metal) is on the order of a single death every few years, and it generally involves people that (for lack of a better description) are at a point in life where any injury, just a fall, is very much life-threatening. The key to reducing traffic deaths is to not have multi-ton cars with power in excess of 50kW crash into squishy humans. There is no amount of polystyrene in the world to diminish the forces involved here.
livatlantis 11y ago
As a cyclist in Paris, yes, I'd say the presence (and domination) of cars is a BIG reason I feel less safe. I have friends from other cities who grew up biking but who don't dare get on one the excellent bikeshare Vélib bikes to get around because they're afraid of being hit. But cars are just one piece in the puzzle; I think what's worse is the psychological atmosphere: the stress, the having to always be on the lookout and, oddly, the lack of civility. I've approached trucks and cars parked on the bike lane to ask them if they could move just a little to the so bikes don't have to swerve around them and enter the flow of car traffic. I do so politely, making sure to not adopt a defensive/aggressive attitude. In a few rare cases, the driver had been genuinely unaware and apologized and moved. In most cases though, I'm insulted and told, "vous me faites chier !" (something along the lines of "You're pissing me off!"). I was once even told by a genleman on a scooter that, "If you want to ride your bike, why don't you just go to the countryside?" If you're on a bike, cars, scooters and motorbikes will constantly remind you that you're not welcome. Try explaining to a car that he's parked on the "sas vélo", that little space reserved for bikes in front of traffic lights. Or explaining to cars that when they turn right and through a bike lane, that it's common courtesy to signal the turn (instead of suddenly turning and shouting at bikes for being in their way). It's a problem of education, too. Cyclists aren't all innocent, either. I've seen people on bikes not stop for pedestrians even when they have right of way. Pedestrians, who are understandably annoyed and probably used to no one looking out for them, also do stupid things like cross when it's red even as they see a bike approaching fast downhill. (This actually happened to me; she apologized when I had to slam my brakes, as did the car behind me. What was odd was that she actually stopped before crossing, saw that the light was red for her and green for cars and bikes, that we were approaching and started crossing anyway. And this isn't an isolated incident, I experience this at least two or three times per week). So, it's a very unhealthy environment where everybody feels no one respects their rights. But cars are by far the biggest reason Paris feels unsafe (even though it really isn't once you get the hang of it). I ride without a helmet but recently got a Hövding (the portably bike airbag from Sweden) to test in the city and wrote a review of it[1]. Mine actually went of accidentally, but I thing they're very, very promising. Not least because of how much more effective they are at oblique, non-perpendicular impacts. [1]: http://www.neustadt.fr/reviews/testing-hovding-invisible-helmet/ http://www.neustadt.fr/reviews/testing-hovding-invisible-hel...
SixSigma 11y ago
I was recently in Delft, NL - I saw hundreds of cyclists - only 5 or so with helmets and they were children / in lycra. Nor gloves. In the UK I always wear both. It is the environment that makes the difference. People in Delft are not going 20mph like I do. They are casually cycling from one part of town to another in their normal clothes.
jrock08 11y ago
Cars are absolutely a dominating factor in biker safety. In NYC in 2012 and 2013 there were 7766 injuries and 30 fatalities of bikers reported which involved cars as compared to 537 injuries and 3 fatalities of bikers which did not involve cars. See page 2 for source: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash-data-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash... http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash-data-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash...

HSO 11y ago

Sorry for the wall of text but this passage from Kundera [1] always comes to mind when I realize (or remember) that noise, somehow, is taken for granted by most people I know: I complain, and they say "stop whining". But it is extraordinary and should not be accepted as a "fact of life". Here's to hope that events like this will make more people aware of that. “Another visit to Prague after 1989. From a friend’s bookcase I happen to pull out a book by Jaromir John, a Czech novelist of the period between the wars. The book is long forgotten; it is called The Internal-Combustion Monster, and I read it for the first time that day. Written around 1932, it tells a story set about ten years earlier, during the first years of the Czechoslovak Republic that was proclaimed in 1918. A Mr. Engelbert, a forestry official in the old regime of the Hapsburg monarchy, moves to Prague to live out his retirement years; but coming up against the aggressive modernity of the young state, he has one disappointment after another. A highly familiar situation. One “aspect, though, is brand new: for Mr. Engelbert the horror of this modern world, the curse, is not the power of money or the arrogance of the arrivistes, it is the noise; and not the age-old noise of a thunderstorm or a hammer, but the new noise of engines, especially of automobiles and motorcycles, the explosive “internal-combustion monsters.” Poor Mr. Engelbert: first he settles in a house in a residential neighborhood; there cars are his first introduction to the evil that will turn his life into an unending flight. He moves to another neighborhood, pleased to see that cars are forbidden entry to his street. Unaware that the prohibition is only temporary, he is exasperated at night when he hears the “internal-combustion monsters” roaring again beneath his window. From then on he never goes to bed without cotton in his ears, realizing that “sleeping is the most basic human desire and that death caused by the impossibility of sleep must be the worst death there is.” He goes to seek silence in country inns (in vain), in provincial cities in the houses of onetime colleagues (in vain), and ends up spending his nights in trains, which “, with their gentle archaic noise, provide him with a slumber that is relatively peaceful in his life as a beleaguered man. When John wrote his novel, Prague had probably one car to every hundred inhabitants or, I don’t know, perhaps to every thousand. It is precisely when it was still rare that the phenomenon of noise (motor noise) stood out in all its astonishing newness. We can deduce a general rule: the existential import of a social phenomenon is most sharply perceptible not as it expands but when it is just beginning, incomparably fainter than it will soon become. Nietzsche remarks that in the sixteenth century nowhere in the world was the Church less corrupt than in Germany and that was the reason the Reformation started precisely there, because the mere “beginnings of corruption were felt to be intolerable.” Bureaucracy in Kafka’s time was an innocent babe compared to today, and yet it was Kafka who revealed its monstrous nature, which since then has become routine and no longer commands anyone’s interest. In the 1960s brilliant philosophers subjected the “consumer society” to a critique that over the years has been so cartoonishly outstripped by reality that we are embarrassed “to refer to it. For we must recall another general rule: reality is utterly unashamed to repeat itself, but confronted with reality’s repetition, thought always ends by falling silent. In 1920 Mr. Engelbert was still astonished by the noise of the “internal-combustion monsters”; the generations that followed found it natural; after initially horrifying man, sickening him, noise gradually reshaped him; through its omnipresence and its permanence it ultimately instilled in him the need for noise, and with that, a whole different relation to nature, to repose, to joy, to beauty, to music (which, now become an uninterrupted background of sound, has lost its char“acter as art) and even speech (which no longer holds a privileged position in the world of sounds). In the history of existence this was a change so profound, so enduring, that no war or revolution can produce its like; a change whose beginnings Jaromir John modestly noted and described. I say “modestly” because John was one of those novelists called “minor”; still, great or small, he was a real novelist; he was not just copying truths stitched on the curtain of preinterpretation; he had the Cervantes-like courage to tear the curtain. Let’s take Mr. Engelbert out of the novel and imagine him as a real man who sets about writing his autobiography; no, it is nothing like John’s novel! For, like most of his ilk, Mr. Engelbert is accustomed to judging life according to what can be read on that curtain hanging in front of the world; he knows that the phenomenon of noise, however disagreeable it is for him, does not deserve interest. But freedom, independence, democracy—or, seen from the opposite angle, capitalism, exploitation, inequality—yes, oh a hundred times yes! Now, those are serious notions, they can give a life meaning, render a misfortune “noble! Thus, in his autobiography, which I envision him writing with cotton stuffed in his ears, he grants great significance to the recovered independence of his homeland, and he rails at the selfishness of the arrivistes; as for those “internal-combustion monsters,” he has relegated them to the bottom of the page, a mere mention of a trivial annoyance that, in the end, is rather amusing. PS: Much like Mr. Engelbert, I resorted to ear plugs, going through all the varieties of it as well as noise canceling headphones. Since about 1.5 years now, I use custom-fitted silicone earplugs and they are amazing. Each ear canal is shaped differently, even "within" the same person from side to side, and a custom fitting makes earplugs most agreeable to wear. I highly recommend this if you suffer from a "too noisy world" like me. They are expensive but the fit and apparent durability make them worth it. One of the best investments in my sanity I've made (so far). _________________________ [1] M. Kundera. The Curtain (Le rideau). Harper Perennial, 2005.

gbugniot 11y ago

I don't know if it's the case too in other countries, but here in France, there are more and more cities which go car-free during a day each month. Most of the time, these car-free events occurs in the historical downtown of big cities, and there are generally appreciated.

agumonkey 11y ago
Some people complained (on some French newspaper website) about bikes being reckless. Personally, seeing empty boulevards and people walking in all direction is making my heart rate slow down. I'm becoming car anxious...
- palunon 11y ago
  We're French... If we can't complain about cars, we have to find something else to complain about...
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    That's limiting, France is also a country with a big poetic history, let's focus on that part :)
ZenoArrow 11y ago
I remember car free Sundays when visiting Quito in Ecuador last year, though I think it was only part of the city. Would like to see it take off all around the world, I think it could do a lot of good.

veddox 11y ago

Never having been to Paris, I am surprised that it doesn't seem to have a car-free inner city anyway (correct me if I'm wrong). I find this one day already a great idea, but why not make it permanent? Almost ever city here in Germany has what we call the "Fußgängerzone" - pedestrians-only zone - in the town center. It makes for a very pleasant atmosphere when you don't have to watch out for cars all the time, and that part of town looks a lot more attractive for it. (Often you will find this area is located in the oldest part of town, so you get to admire all the old buildings even better.)

gbugniot 11y ago
There are some pedestrians-only areas in Paris : http://en.parisinfo.com/discovering-paris/themed-guides/paris-outdoors/open-air-outings/pedestrian-areas http://en.parisinfo.com/discovering-paris/themed-guides/pari...
netrus 11y ago
Paris does have Fußgängerzonen as well (around Les Halles for example, in La Defance, Latin Quarter ...) but this is a huge city. Only Berlin comes close, and there are cars all around Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, Ku'Damm ... But I agree, Paris would clearly benefit from a no car zone from Rivoli to maybe Luxemburg. The roads are too small for serious car traffic anyway.
- bwohlergo 11y ago
  "... Paris is a huge city. Only Berlin comes close, ..." yeah, right Paris: 2,241,346 (2014) Berlin: 3,562,166 (2014)
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    Population by administrative area is irrelevant. "Comparing urban areas in the European Union, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the EU, places Paris (6.5 million people) second behind London (8 million) and ahead of Berlin (3.5 million), based on the 2012 populations of what Eurostat calls "urban audit core cities"." — Wikipedia.

nmc 11y ago

Here is a map showing (in dark green) the areas where roads were closed for motorized vehicles: https://api-site.paris.fr/images/74176 https://api-site.paris.fr/images/74176

awjr 11y ago

What I think this demonstrates is something that a lot of cities are waking up to. The car is not a friend of the urban landscape. A lot of cities are now prioritising walking/cycling/public transport over the ability to drive anywhere and everywhere and this is having a profound effect on health and well being of their residents. It is hard though. Events like this show what is possible.

andys627 11y ago
Totally agree. Helps to point out how much we've been subsidizing personal auto use - mainly by not charging user fees enough to cover all costs of driving.
- awjr 11y ago
  That's the thing. In the UK the cost to the NHS (UK Free Healthcare) is not costed into the price people pay at the fuel pump. I believe revenue from Car Tax/Fuel/VAT is about £48 billion, however the cost to the country is calculated at about £70 billion.
  - jedrek 11y ago
    + 28 billion quid spent on roads.
  - dalke 11y ago
    The calculation isn't so simple. The use of cars may enable additional business. If that leads to an additional £50 billion in tax revenue, then it would be worthwhile, from a bookkeeping perspective.
    - rsfern 11y ago
      On the other hand, more pedestrian traffic also may enable additional business, as people are more likely to wander in and out of shops, and they aren't competing for limited parking availability.

veddox 11y ago

Car-free days remind me of the car-free Sundays people tell me about from the 1973 oil-crisis. They used to go cycling on the motorways - wouldn't that be fun to do again?

ido 11y ago
Israel has 1 day per year where there's no car traffic anywhere in the country (yom kipur - no motorized transit of any kind, even trains). It's among some of my fondest memories of childhood, i wish we had something like that in Germany :) People indeed cycle, roller skate, and skateboard on the highways.
- smonff 11y ago
  Looks like they made this "speedway without cars" thing in Montreuil (east suburb of Paris) during this event. For the 7th year... Montreuil is a much more progressive city than Paris. http://www.lavoieestlibre.org/#la-voie-est-libre http://www.lavoieestlibre.org/#la-voie-est-libre
jlebrech 11y ago
That would be amazing, motorways are nice and smooth.

jsumrall 11y ago

After spending lots of time in the Netherlands, where bikes and pedestrians are respected, it was a shock to see the situation in Paris when I was there this week. It felt like a car city. Roads sometimes took up a significant amount of space and the sidewalk was only wide enough for one person. Drivers also had such a lack of respect for bikes and pedestrians. It was at times frightening to try to use a crosswalk, as nobody would stop for the people trying to cross. Paris is much better than the states, but they have a lot of room for improvement.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
I think there are some cities in Europe - can't remember if Paris is one - in which road traffic can still cross on a green light for pedestrians, maybe only a left turn and if there is no-one crossing. Of course, "no-one" crossing is then taken with a pinch of salt by bullying drivers. This is definitely not the case in London, although traffic still has a tendency to go through red lights late.
- glandium 11y ago
  You're thinking about a right turn on a red light, and it's not the case in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_turn_on_red https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_turn_on_red
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    Oh yes, for places that drive on the right, that obviously makes more sense! It might not be for the same reason, but I've definitely felt like drivers have 'more priority' over crossing pedestrians when in mainland Europe. Even on a pedestrian green light.
    - mootothemax 11y ago
      >Even on a pedestrian green light. Yup - here in Warsaw, that's way more of a give way signal than a stop, thanks to quite often drivers and pedestrians having a green light at the same time!

jmcomets 11y ago

A small shortcut in this article that I can't help to point out: > The Volkswagen scandal over emissions-rigging has increased pressure on the French government to act on car pollution. The current mayor of Paris has been taking actions like this one since she was instated. We regularly have to deal with "50 km/h max speed" measures and it has nothing to do with the VW rigging scandal. Small sidenote: > In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour. I'm not sure this is true, but I assure to you no one was driving 20 km/h in my neighbourhood. All in all this was a great opportunity to see the streets of Paris without any cars whatsoever.

hvidgaard 11y ago
The most annoying this about those speeds, is that a car is far more efficient at 50km/h, than at 20km/h.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  I suspect the point is to make it pointless to drive, when you can cycle at that speed anyway.
- Piskvorrr 11y ago
  Except you are lucky if you can get even to 20 km/h in Paris, forget about 50 km/h. "Fluid traffic" is a red herring in such circumstances - those other cars always get in the way ;)
- kilotaras 11y ago
  Also far more deadly.
- shawn-furyan 11y ago
  The closed system of the car is more efficient. It's not clear that allowing cars to travel at speeds that makes it impossible for them to share roads with pedestrians is globally efficient. Really, allowing cars at all is a concession to global efficiency. In that light, one can see the benefit to abridging driver's generally assumed right to utterly dominate any place they aren't completely prohibited.

haser_au 11y ago

I was in Paris from Fri-Sun, and the difference between having cars and not having cars in the city centre was incredible. I've been to Paris a few times before, but the calm, lack of noise and general feeling of pedestrians was incredible. More cities should take the lead from Paris/Germany/etc. and reduce the number of vehicles in city centres.

pkaye 11y ago

Is the high air pollution due to population density or emissions technology (ie Diesel vs Petrol?) For example, I look up the pollution numbers for 2015 in California Bay Area and the strict California PM10 limits were exceeded for only 2 days in the year.* And California is known for being car crazy and we have had hot dry weather for some time now. * (http://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/air-quality-summaries http://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/air-quality-summarie...) BTW where do I find something similar for Paris?

maelito 11y ago
The proximity of the sea might be one reason. Check www.airparif.asso.fr for the numbers !
- pkaye 11y ago
  That would make sense. In California, there is the Central Valley which is far from the ocean but lower population density and the pollution is much worse.
weddpros 11y ago
you can find current data at http://www.airparif.asso.fr/en/stations/index http://www.airparif.asso.fr/en/stations/index including pm10 measurements

czzarr 11y ago

This is the latest political stunt of the hipster left in power that doesn't care one bit for people who actually have things to do during their day, and only cares about tourists and skateboarders who go in circles in the very center of Paris. Tough luck if you come from far away for work, if you are old or handicapped, if you planned a day in the countryside with your family of four children, etc. Pollution is much lower when traffic is fluid, and recent road work and legislation have done nothing but help create huge congestions that drive pollution through the roof.

Piskvorrr 11y ago
"Pollution is much lower when traffic is fluid" - that's all very nice, but have you been to Paris recently? As in, within the last 50 years? On a usual day (i.e. one without a citywide car restriction), there's no such thing as "fluid traffic" there - you shuffle forward, meter by meter, in a massive traffic jam covering the city. Also, you are severely underestimating the public transport network - "if you come from far away for work," you have probably left your car at a train station and rode into the city on a RER or a Metro train. Same goes for the other objections, strange as it may seem to USians. In other words, your arguments seem to hinge on "if Paris were an American type of city, a citywide car ban would suck." Thankfully, it's not one (i.e. driving a car is an option, not a necessity).
- czzarr 11y ago
  I've been living in Paris since 1997, so yes, I know what I'm talking about. I agree that on a usual day, there are massive traffic jams everywhere. That's because of the relentless resourcefulness with which the leftist mayors have been hindering car transportation in Paris, by constructing countless bus lanes, fake bike lanes, road bumps and other extravaganza. They have artfully managed to completely fuck up Paris traffic. "Driving a car is an option". We'll see when you are 80 years old and can't take the bus or subway alone. We'll see when you have to move after 1am. We'll see when you are disabled. We'll see when you have to move your children outside the city for sports for instance. Trains are all fine and dandy but they don't go door to door. Oh and btw: I'm young, single, without child, don't own a car and cycle everywhere. I'm just pissed off by all that hipster bullshit. Last thing: when actual real solutions to traffic problems such as Uber Pop arise, they are crushed by the government. See the hypocrisy now ?

lugus35 11y ago

L'oligarchie (dont fait partie Anne Hidalgo) continue de prendre le taxi, les riches bobos habitants de Paris peuvent, eux, prendre leur voiture. Les immigrés eux, vont dans le centre de Paris grâce aux transports en commun qui ont été financés par la France entière. Au delà des banlieues parisiennes, la France périphérique, blanche, qui est maintenue en dehors de Paris et sa Banlieue.

JoachimS 11y ago

To be pedantic, Paris has been car free for most of its history.

akramhussein 11y ago

I was in Paris this weekend-just-gone and sat on the bench on Sunday on Champs-Élysées watching all these people walking down the road. I thought it had always been like this. Then I saw the police at around 6pm start to ease it up and march in front of the cars to open the roads again and back to normal with cars beeping their horns and nearly hitting cyclists. Now it completely makes sense why that old French man sat next to me and wouldn't stop talking about the cars and pollution.

jstoja 11y ago

IMHO I just think that this retrospective isn't relevant. This measures have not had time to really show what it can do. I just think that the past windy and sunny days made the pollution go away. Not really representative of the result of such actions...

mtgx 11y ago

Instead of outright banning all cars, why not ban only the polluting ones, essentially allowing only EVs in cities? That would also accelerate the long-term goal of cleaning up the city of smog, which is what they're trying to do with these "no-car days", because people would dump their polluting cars faster. If the no-car days don't drive people to dump their cars too fast or at all, then these acts will be just symbolic anyway and won't have much effect on city pollution.

upofadown 11y ago
Pollution is only one of a long list of problems caused by cars in cities.

WalterBright 11y ago

I'd like to see some of streets in the city closed to cars during working hours. I've seen this in England, and it's quite nice.

tim333 11y ago

Maybe before too long much of the traffic could be replaced by self driving electric vehicles? The hardest part of traffic to deal with is probably trucks delivering goods and maybe those could be replaced by some unmanned electric things that trundle overnight.

kweks 11y ago

I was in Paris this weekend; it was great to be able to participate in this project. It was pleasant on multiple levels - the lack of traffic, absolutely, but also the sense of community and sense of belonging. There's definitely a feeling of 'taking back' your city when you can circulate freely. One of the most interesting aspects was that the road tunnels were also open. Paris has quite a few tunnel systems in the center of town, and most of these were available to stroll through, proving a unique insight into what is an oft-overlooked part of the city. That, and the ability to run / ride / skate through the system, made for a fun day. It's definitely something other cities could adapt

tgb 11y ago

Philadelphia had the roads in center city shut down this weekend for the pope's visit. As someone who has no car, it was glorious! I'd love to see it done on a regular basis, preferably without needing the national guard on every street corner.

andrewl 11y ago
I agree. The city felt so much more friendly. And it was quieter, too.
lfam 11y ago
I have lived here for four years. This was by far my favorite weekend ever in Philadelphia. The feeling of being able to walk around downtown, mingling with thousands of other people, and NEVER having to look over my shoulder make sure that I wasn't about to be crushed by 2 tons of speeding steel was indeed a glorious feeling. The local businesses suffered, but I'm sure that if the streetscape changed, the "business-scape" would, too.

jlebrech 11y ago

Well, the first time in 110 years.

caio1982 11y ago

I wonder what would be the political and economical cost to have such a car-free day at least once in, say, Manhattan. The landscape would probably look a bit alien even :-)

et2o 11y ago
I agree-Manhattan has far too many cars. I think they should shut down 1/2 of the avenues to car traffic a la Amsterdam.

greggyb 11y ago

Philadelphia recently did this. Your city can, too. Just bring the pope for a weekend.

mixmastamyk 11y ago
When the pope came to Rio de Janeiro recently they actually did the opposite and closed the metro for a week, the mind still boggles at the reasoning.

hyperion2010 11y ago

A link that might be of interest [0]. I haven't read the book, but this guy put a lot of thought into what it would take. 0. http://www.carfree.com/ http://www.carfree.com/

ocschwar 11y ago

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem go car free eery Yom Kippur. Driving ends at sunset, and you can feel and smell the difference within the first hour.