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The Greening of Paris Makes Its Mayor More Than a Few Enemies
- ajross 7y agoFWIW: a few high-rise apartment buildings would do far more for climate impact than all the trees they could possibly squeeze into Paris. Paris's building codes have historically been a disaster for density, and at the end of the day it's urban density that matters more than anything else. Get/keep the people off then land, then turn it into something less impactful.
- selectodude 7y agoThat’s an odd take. Paris is the densest city in the EU and one of the densest cities in the world.
- greggman2 7y agoThat's arguable one of those lies of statistics. This comes up every time for example Hong Kong is way way WAY more dense than Paris. But because of arbitrary city boundries some unpopulated mountains are included in the city borders so the true density is not remotely the density listed on these kinds of lists. Go visit Hong Kong and you'll see it's easily 5x as dense as Paris. Maybe more. The same is true of many other cities in Asia. Visit and you'll realize the stats that show Paris in the top 10 are complete BS. The same thing comes up NYC vs LA. By the land / people they are about the same density but anyone who's been to both knows NYC is more dense than LA. Using population weight density shows NYC is up to 3x more dense than LA https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/census-bureau-embraces-weighted-density/69236/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti... With poulation weighted density Paris is not #1 in Europe https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/weighted-density-of-european-and-australian-cities.24635/ https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/weighted-density-of-eu... And if the same was applied world wide Paris would not even be in the top 100
- Scoundreller 7y agoIt's also tiny. It's easy to win the "densest city" contest when you exclude the decreasingly dense outer areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_proper_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_...
- bouh 7y agoParis is pretty dense already ! In the top 10 cities : https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-most-densely-populated-cities.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-most-densely... High towers cannot be put everywhere
- MiroF 7y ago> High towers cannot be put everywhere Why not?
- BeniBoy 7y agoThe ground. Paris's ground is not strong enough to support high rise building especially in the southern part, where a lot of it have been excavated in the last 500 years (and filled with dead bodies, ie the catacombs). Of course with clever engineering everything is possible, but that really limits the development of such towers. It is true that the main limitation still is the construction code, which preserves the global proportion of the city.
- Scoundreller 7y agoThe usual approach is to punch pilings into bedrock. Nothing new really. Hollow shafts might be an issue, but nothing a stroke of the pen won't solve.
- lazyasciiart 7y agoGets a lot more complicated when you have tunnels everywhere already.
- Scoundreller 7y agoThat’s what I meant by shafts. You could fill them, but dunno how kosher that is. It’s not like they’re open to the public or anything. I believe you can take the catacombs under Montparnasse station, so it’s a solved problem ( I hope ).
- rustyconover 7y agoHaving more Montparnasse-esque towers would destroy the a lot of the streetscapes created by Haussmann that make Paris so distinctive. How can you not love all of the chimney pots? Keep the height restrictions inside of the city and continue to keep high rises near La Défense and serve them with efficient and effective mass transit.
- throwawaysea 7y agoAgree. For some reason many people either dismiss or undervalue the character of cities and neighborhoods, which are a critical part of their culture, the quality of life, and what made them attractive in the first place.
- yardie 7y agoParis is one of the densest modern European cities I have ever lived in. My first flat was a 20sqm studio. And my last apartment was 97sqm for a family of 4. Even in NYC the smallest place I could find was 45sqm and even that was considered less than ideal. It costs a lot of fuel to keep a large apartment comfortable. So your typical American, 800sqft, 1/1 simply would not work in Paris. Micro-apartments are just becoming a thing in the US and even then there is a lot of pushback from inhabitants and developers. Finally, Paris sits in a valley. The trees aren't just an aesthetic, they help keep the inhabitants sane and clear the air. New York City on the other hand turns into a miserable, swamp during the summer. It's hot, humid, and with no breeze the air actually feels gross.
- Scoundreller 7y agoThat’s because NYC itself gets hotter than Paris. Paris isn’t very breezy at ground level because the streets are all short and keep turning. The air stays stagnant, unlike NYC’s grids. Paris’ density is from the lack of building: instead units just get sub divided ad finitum, instead of building up. Still, density isn’t high, it just feels that way, especially with Paris proper's small size: not even 2 Manhattans. Then you have larger units 95% unoccupied kept as pied-a-terres/investments. Those Haussmann buildings don’t do a good job of insulating or HVAC. Even 1970s multiunit buildings in the burbs are all single-pane windows with cracks to the outside. When you have a weak radiator-based central heating system, you don’t dare turn it down or off when you leave: your unit may never recover and be warm again. Meanwhile in North America, I turn off HVAC whenever I leave for a few hours: I know it can get back to human temperatures quickly. Though the French do a good job in summer: every window has shutters, so you can block out the sun very well. Some of my darkest days have been in Paris in summer because my hosts kept the indoors in total darkness :)
- riquito 7y agoLet's put some numbers. Paris has almost double the density then New York (20000/km2 Vs 10700/km2) Source: Wikipedia
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- close04 7y agoIn many large cities you see sprawling suburbs and neighborhoods with individual houses. These take up a huge area that could have been planted with trees, need a lot of new infrastructure built (a lot of asphalt), and a lot of brand new lawns to water. All of which have plenty of negative environmental impact. This also encourages people to go for personal cars since public transport never really seems to keep up efficiently given the low density and large areas. And all of those cars go to the city every day. The problem is basically everyone thinks the solution to all of this is to buy an EV (I know I'll get a lot of hate from EV owners/fans for this one; still true for those who fit the rest of the description above) instead of seeing all the other ways with far bigger impact. Like not needing a car at all, for one. This would slowly reduce traffic to the point where cutting a lane doesn't cause any severe inconvenience.
- AdrianB1 7y agoI have family in the Paris suburbs: they never have to water the lawn, there is enough rain for that. Trey also don't have a lot of asphalt, there are some narrow streets connecting village to village and even smaller streets in the villages. There are lots of trees everywhere, it's as green as you can get.
- close04 7y agoWhat I described is a general problem around most if not all big cities. This is a random internet picture from a Paris suburb (close to CDG) [0]. While there are some trees it's far from a forested area. A green lawn is a far cry from a green forest when talking climate. And any unnecessary asphalt is too much. Just browse around with satellite view if you're curious how such villages look like compared to the actual patches of forest. This is a village ~25Km from Paris, right next to a forest [1]. While these low density suburbs definitely provide more comfort for their inhabitants much like cars provide comfort for their drivers, it's a very inefficient use of that land to everyone else's disadvantage and guarantees those people have to drive to the city. Public transport wouldn't be anywhere near as efficient when you start spreading tens of Km from the city in every direction. And there are far bigger offenders out there like in this random pic. [2] > they never have to water the lawn That sounds like an anecdote but I drove through plenty of suburbs (Paris or otherwise) and most lawns were green even after heatwaves and droughts. I'm pretty sure so many still generously water their lawns. Pools just add to that. [0] https://l7.alamy.com/zooms/cc7447863ce84406b71d51be29c7b830/france-seine-saint-denis-tremblay-en-france-residential-area-in-the-cpydm5.jpg https://l7.alamy.com/zooms/cc7447863ce84406b71d51be29c7b830/... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Maffliers,+France/@49.0754888,2.3034475,1837a,35y,5.44t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47e6433f72df61e3:0x8c8dc94c3c52b3e4!8m2!3d49.0773518!4d2.3069572 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Maffliers,+France/@49.0754... [2] http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1291806/images/o-SUBURBS-facebook.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1291806/images/o-SUBURBS-facebook....
- j-pb 7y agoThe trees are not there to prevent climate change by absorbing CO2, but to mitigate the effects of climate change by providing a cooling effect through shade and water evaporation. Reducing car traffic also helps to improve the "climate" of the city on a hot day.
- throwaway2048 7y agoParis is one of the densest city in the whole world.
- Iv 7y agoThere is a war in the French twitter vs bike-enthusiasts and car users every time a major road sees a bicycle lane added. It feels weird to the rest of us, living outside Paris, to see so much media noise over 500 m of asphalt...
- epistasis 7y agoNew York gets physical altercations at public meetings: https://gothamist.com/news/battle-over-park-slope-bike-lane-gets-physical-you-wanna-clown-around-me https://gothamist.com/news/battle-over-park-slope-bike-lane-...
- versk 7y agoThat has to be one of the most entertaining, bizarre and depressing accounts of local politics I have ever read. Thanks.
- grecy 7y agoAnd it's OK that this move is making the Mayor more than a few enemies. The job of elected officials is not to please everyone. The job of elected officials is to improve stuff, and leave the region in a better state than when they came into office. In the coming years and decades we're going to need a lot of elected officials to "make enemies" as they work hard to improve the unsustainable world we've built.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoYes! Very true! But you have to be prepared when the knife comes for your back politically (ie voter support must continue). Otherwise you’re leaving these civil servants high and dry.
- acdha 7y ago… and 50 years from now the people being annoyed by green measures will be remembered only as at best misguided, like the people who claimed that smog prevention would devastate California’s economy.
- sitkack 7y agoBecause of our pervasive rejection of logic/math/science/engineering we also cannot get rewarded for what did not happen. Even in supposed engineering driven businesses, the lack of rigor is astonishing. Use science, double check your work, map out the cognitive blind spots. Humans are drama addicted, short attention span, hairless chaos monkeys that like to look heroic fixing existing problem, and ignore impending ones.
- acdha 7y agoThis is a bit pessimistic — it especially ignores the role of highly-paid denial campaigns, which are far from inevitable – and in any case, any scenario where people are talking about it not happening is highly unlikely. We’ll be very lucky if the argument is that it wasn’t severe enough to warrant action because that’s basically halting along current levels.
- 7y ago
- xenospn 7y agoParis traffic was insane long before she got elected. I'm always amazed at how people are unable to think two steps ahead, instead focusing just on today and how traffic is 'awful'. Well, she's doing something about it, isn't she?!
- michaelbuckbee 7y agoIt's not like traffic jams weren't a thing prior to this, just that there wasn't an alternative. What's the pro-auto solution to the traffic jams and pollution? You can't physically fit more cars in the space. Bikes, scooters and public transit are all so much more efficient and truly practical for city transportation that it feels hard to argue with.
- njarboe 7y agoLots of tunnels a la The Boring Company and electric vehicles. The tech seems to work, but the politics doesn't support it. People in government want mass transit they control, not personalized transit.
- esoterica 7y agoYou realize the roads are controlled by the government too?
- javagram 7y agoThe boring company has not yet demonstrated their ability to dig tunnels quickly and cheaply compared to the many existing tunnel-digging companies. Politicians actually seem to love Musk’s claims of being able to do so though, considering Boring is doing well landing some deals with them. There isn’t really much “tech” there, just a small subway tunnel with car-sized cabs instead of trains. Personal rapid transit systems have already been demonstrated decades ago and there isn’t really reason to believe they could be cost-effective at replacing personal car use.
- jokoon 7y agoI've left Paris 12 years ago. I hate cars so much. Glad to see they're realizing those things. People should never forget how the car industry lobbied so that cars own most of the street. Biking and walking have become marginal things. How often do you realize you can't go from point A to B because it's impossible to street walk anymore? I've walked around cities many times, and I could not go in a direction because of how roads could not be crossed. The "1-person car " meme is a real, real problem. Most people think that driving is a right, but we soon realize it's more a privilege and a source of problems.
- momokoko 7y ago> People should never forget how the car industry lobbied so that cars own most of the street. Please stop with the conspiracy stories. I hate cars more than anyone, but all this "Big Auto" stuff just discredits the entire thing as a bunch of fanatics.
- dhhdhdsbdb 7y agoThere is a documented history of this kind of thing. See https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
- momokoko 7y agoThat is a vox article. It's fun to read and gets a lot of shares on social media. But it wildly exaggerates reality and wildly downplays that massive demand and growth in car ownership during that period. The idea that everyone hated cars and the evil car lobby came in and forced it upon them is flat out incorrect.
- smt88 7y agoI don't see the article claiming people hated cars. What the auto industry accomplished was to push the government to favor cars to the eventual exclusion of almost every other form of transit. Even if people didn't hate cars, this still wasn't a fair fight in an open market. It was an industry co-opting consumer and voter power.
- Scoundreller 7y agoIt's too bad their electric carshare system failed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolib%27 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolib%27 And their municipal bike-sharing system probably won't survive the triple whammy of drop-bikes, e-scooters and a contract change.
- lucasverra 7y agoDisclaimer : I live in Paris and my commute is 95% the municipal bike-sharing system. My prediction is it wont go away because : - too much branding associated, velib = Paris - too much (taxpayer) money invested. Competitors are X5 in prices due to muncipal money distortion.
- ElFitz 7y agoHard to beat those 30 free minutes per ride at ~30€ / year
- lucasverra 7y agoWell, price got revisited[1], now is more 40€/year for that [1]https://www.velib-metropole.fr/en/offers#subscription https://www.velib-metropole.fr/en/offers#subscription
- ElFitz 7y agoOh. My bad. I should have kept up to date. Still, at 0,20€ / minute on Lime, that's the same price as five half-hour Lime rides.
- lucasverra 7y agoplus the 1€ unlock fee charged by most (IDK about lime particularly)
- baud147258 7y agoAlso the bike-sharing system has run very poorly last year, when they switched to the existing operator (because Hidalgo didn't like JCDecaux) to a no-name startup who had done nothing on that scale. The new operator decided to change everything (bikes and stations) and the roll-up was a disaster of epic proportions, because they didn't have the experience, staff and equipment for such a switch.
- Scoundreller 7y ago> Don’t mention her name to taxi drivers. This has more to do with Uber than a war on the car. If you thought your taxis were bad, Paris' were worse.
- michalu 7y agoIt's not the greening that makes people in Paris angry, it's the the incompetence in implementing nice sounding ideas. Anyone can have a good idea and say it to get elected ... nobody is going to argue with more trees, family friendly city, less crime etc. everyone can recognize these are good ideas ... the difference is in that you put an incompetent but marketable idiot into office and the final outcome will be negative to where you started. An example, Paris has now public piss boxes on every major cross-roads to avoid people pissing in small streets so now you have smelly pissed over boxes in the highest foot traffic areas and people openly pissing there. Good idea, poor implementation, the net value is negative i.e. the situation is worse. So you have a woman with no track record in life in an office surrounded by other people with no track record but ticking the political, sociological boxes. And if you're 50 and you haven't built a track record of any productive work with your own resources at your own risk, you're not likely to suddenly build one with other people's resources (money) at their risk ... your incompetence is likely going to show up.
- jimktrains2 7y agoI spent a week in Paris last Christmas, and made use of many of those public toilets, especially because I have a toddler. The ones I used didn't spell outside. I'm sure I only have a small sample of maybe a dozen, but I have no reason to think they're an exceptional sample? >So you have a woman with no track record in life in an office surrounded by other people with no track record but ticking the political, sociological boxes. And if you're 50 and you haven't built a track record of any productive work, you're not likely to suddenly build one with other people's money I obviously do not follow Paris municipal politics, but why would it flow that never having help public office means you'll never be able to hold off and "build a track record"? That seems a bit circular.
- michalu 7y agoNo, the problem is these people only held public jobs. They are what you get when bureaucrat breeds with a PR guy ... no creative work, no-problem solving, no personal stakes on their resumes. When they then decide it's time to be productive the lack of competence and disparity between ideas and skills show up. You'll get the case of industrious idiot. For such people a creative task is like a school activity with no personal risk other than bad grade ... but in reality the risk exists they play for other people's money and livelihoods. I've personally observed such tendencies and attitudes among eurocrats.
- localhost 7y agoI've recently become a huge fan of Horace Dediu's writing and podcast on micromobility[1] (defined as the rise of vehicles <500kg). He frames micromobility as the "unbundling of the car".[2] While the article only tangentially talks about micromobility vehicles, the core argument of this article is the creation of infrastructure that enables micromobility. I just spent yesterday walking through parts of Brooklyn and Queens in NYC (14 miles, 33K steps - a record for me). I saw people actually talking to each other on the street, and based on my deliberate route, very little traffic. That's a stark contrast to my usual suburban lifestyle on the eastside in Seattle. I really hope to see more infrastructure creation happening in the US. It will likely need to start in dense places like NYC with good transit infrastructure. [1] https://micromobility.io/blog https://micromobility.io/blog [2] https://medium.com/micromobility/micromobility-episode-1-transcript-a4a017c3d3ec https://medium.com/micromobility/micromobility-episode-1-tra...
- chillacy 7y agoThere's been an explosion in electric things in the past few years (scooters, skateboards, one-wheels, etc), they're mighty convenient for last mile transportation, and not particularly expensive.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ousta 7y agono she did not greened paris. she removed lanes around the seine river and now the traffic rerouted in the inner paris which made everywhere inside paris jammed like never before. that is not greening. planting trees in paris is not a new mayor thing... it has been a permanent task of every city hall as paris has many trees. she is at best a crook at worst an incompetent. she bought buildings to turn them into projects and said she made money out of it, writing into the yearly city financials money that she made in a 10-year deal that the estate company had to pay upfront without mentionning that and got caught by the press. she permanently pays for useless overly expensive modern art piece that at best interest herself and a few people on twitter, she doesn't do anything to help migrants that live like dogs in the city and at best she encourage them to live like dogs. she is destroying the landscape of paris allowing highrise and revamping of an historical building through glass windows everywhere that will look like shit in 5 years. everything is made to last a few years of mandate. most of the neighborhoods with mass immigration are worse than ever, dirtier , more crime, more violence than in the previous decade while people never been richer in france.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago> The environmental results are ambiguous at best. There were around five days with elevated ozone levels, for instance, in 2014, the year Ms. Hidalgo took over; in 2018 there were from 15 to 22, depending on which part of the city you were in. >“There are fewer cars, but there is more congestion, and that can affect pollution levels,” said Paul Lecroart, an urban planning expert at the Paris regional planning agency. I think this is what makes people angry. There is no evidence that this actually reduced pollution, in fact, it seems like it increased pollution. In addition, it has greatly inconvenienced a lot of people. So, unless you are a die-hard bike fan, this mayor’s program seems like a net negative to you.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 7y agoThat's short sighted. It takes time for people to change habits. I've been a "die-hard bike fan" for a few years now (living in Paris for 10+ years, but commuting with bikes for only the last 2-3). However, most of my friends (especially girls/women) are only now considering buying a bike because the infrastructure is just starting to look safe enough for "prudent" people That's why bike usage rising fast in Paris. But it will still takes a few more years to switch like Amsterdam. Of course, many are still riding Ubers but they're changing mind right now. Be patient.
- baud147258 7y agoIt also moved a lot of pollution to the suburbs of Paris, outside of the bobo area where Hidalgo, her cronies and her supporters lives, that was the only goal. She don't care about the people in the suburbs who get even more pollution.
- fizixer 7y agosomething wrong with the title? > The Greening of Paris Makes Its Mayor Make More Than a Few Enemies ?
- AdrianB1 7y agoNot really. There is a repetition, but that is a minor issue that does not deserve a comment. The title is definitely overly complex for what it wants to tell, but that's just modern journalism/
- on_and_off 7y ago>But the city itself has seen a steep drop in car ownership, from 60 percent of households in 2001, to 35 percent today. Having lived in Paris for 4 years (and I guess I could be accused of being a bobo since I am an engineer and I care about mitigating climate change), I wonder what the situation of these 35% is. I sold my car as soon as I moved in Paris. The subway is just as efficient in almost all cases without having to drive. And driving in Paris is just the worst..
- _n_b_ 7y ago> I wonder what the situation of these 35% is. Easy. Live in Paris, work in the Banlieue somewhere inconvenient to an RER station...
- megaremote 7y agoEasy, get a new job or move. Not sure why all of Paris has to suffer because you are incapable of working out these problems on your own? Or get a bike or scooter to finish the last mile.
- on_and_off 7y agoI was just wondering from a stat perspective :) I do know that there are cases where you still need a car. I did dig up some info : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1285604 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1285604 Interestingly, it looks like the current mayor is just pushing the city in the direction where it is already going.
- baud147258 7y agoThe "less car" direction was already started by the previous mayor, though.
- baud147258 7y agoMy brother lives in Paris and works in multiple construction sites all around Paris, usually in cities without any train line, so he has no choice but to use his (company-provided) car.
- maxaf 7y agoI don’t know how things are in Paris (never really been), but here in NYC public transit is extremely unreliable and optimized for only one use case: to move 9-5 commuters between their homes in the outer boroughs and the two central business districts of Manhattan. For any other use case the transit system is basically useless. For example, my kid needs to get from school to swim practice multiple times a week. School and swim team schedules are set in stone, but there isn’t a public transit option that will allow the two to coexist without incredible daily feats of arbitrage between ride share and a hellish commute involving two buses. This is physically impossible, not merely inconvenient. Let’s not pretend that transit can solve for the needs of every single city resident. If the city has any ambition to be a melting pot for all, it needs to allow everyone to coexist. Some people will choose to drive, others will take transit, but to push one group out in favor of another will leave the city a hollowed out core once again... just like it was before the urban renaissance which began in the 1990s. PS: If your main objection to cars is pollution, we’ll mosey on over to electric cars as soon as charging infrastructure gets off the ground. There’s only a smattering of Teslas in Manhattan, but soon enough there will be enough charging stations to get our gas guzzlers off the road for good.
- jamil7 7y ago> If the city has any ambition to be a melting pot for all, it needs to allow everyone to coexist. Which is an excellent argument for public transport, the point of it is to serve everyone rather than those who can afford to own and run a car and those how have the ability to drive. I can't comment to NYC public transit but there are plenty of cities around the world with reliable and effecient public transport, don't write it off completely because NYC's is subpar. The idea is not to ban cars completely but to make taking alternatives easier and better than taking a car, in doing that we need to divert some of the money and land that cars have historically dominated.
- maxaf 7y ago> plenty of cities around the world with reliable and effecient public transport, don't write it off completely because NYC's is subpar. I'm certainly not writing off public transit as a concept. I'd love to be able to step out of my building, step into a magical conveyance that I didn't have to drive myself, and step out next to my destination. It's great that other cities managed to solve this problem, but I don't live in those other cities. Yes, NYC could right itself, and build more subway/tram/BRT lines, but this tends to take forever. I need to get places now. My life won't wait for the city to sort itself out.
- AdrianB1 7y agoThe article is mixing a few different points in a strange way. Paris has an excellent subway system with about 350 stations, everywhere you want to go there is a subway station less than 500 meters away, sometimes you have 2-3 stations in this range. There is also the RER that connects to surrounding cities and villages. Driving is Paris does not make too much sense to me. But building lots of bicycle lanes is not making any significant difference, as a person that used to use the bicycle to commute to the office I can tell I had just 6-7 months when I was able to do that - in hot summer and in the middle of the winter it is simply too unpleasant to use the bicycle. On the other side, the article suggests part of the disagreement with the mayor is because she is a woman. Well, that is a bad excuse, I don't think anyone has a problem with her gender. Then it mentions the piss smell. Yes, it is there, it is terrible, but greening and piss have no relationship. There are some obvious causes for the piss smell in some neighborhoods, but they are not even mentioned because it does not match the political color of the newspaper. No comment. But then it jumps into the Airbnb problem: while this is a real problem, it has nothing to do with "greening" the city. It should be discussed separately, not thrown in the pot and stirred just to put more words in the article or put more substance in the list of problems, even if there is no link to the subject.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoParis too hot in the summer? C'mon, the average high is like 25C. Too cold in the winter? Oulu, Finland would like a word. As Germans would say, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Or in this case, probably bad infrastructure. Only visited once, but Paris didn't seem to have all that many protected bike lanes and paths compared to even Munich -- which definitely still favors cars over bikes -- let alone compared to Dutch cities.
- AdrianB1 7y agoYou don't go to the office on the average temperature, everything higher than 25 degrees, some longer distance and/or some small hills and you get there sweaty and smelly. Anything over 30 degrees guarantees that and an average high of 25 degrees means you can have 2-3 hotter days every week - it is enough to make cycling unpredictable. I currently work in Bucharest and the average high is higher, from May to September you have 30 degrees or more, while in the winter you have snow on the road and it is illegal to ride a bicycle. Not Finland and not Cairo (Egypt), but good enough to make cycling unpleasant.
- viburnum 7y agoThe mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has said she wants Paris to be a place "where you can let go of your child’s hand." I think that's beautiful. People sacrifice so much freedom to allow cars to dominate their space.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoThat's a nice way to put it. Once you have a toddler and you're walking around on a street with them, you realize that cars represent DRASTICALLY more imminent, lethal danger to your kid than basically anything else around.
- viburnum 7y agoHave you seen this illustration? https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny-space-with-danger-just-beside https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny...
- rcMgD2BwE72F 7y agoThank you so much! I've been searching the Web for years to find this cartoon (to no avail) and funnily that was to describe my life as a Parisian.
- CalRobert 7y ago"asphalt ribbons of death" is the best description of roads I've heard.
- CapitalistCartr 7y agoAmerican here. I wish we had a way to restrict trucks to delivery and work crews, with commuters who don't need a land yacht to driving something like Fiat 500, Toyota IQ, Mini Cooper: Max 1.6m tall, 1.8m wide, 4m long. Cities would be drastically more livable.
- noobermin 7y agoIt's really amazing. I recently traveled to see my SO in Singapore, and made a stop in Seoul, and seemingly every city is laying down restrictions on SUVs. SUVs even make the road worse for other drivers yet no city in the US has the guts to put restrictions on them.