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Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars
- biggletiddies 7mo ago[dead]
- hshdhdhj4444 7mo agoThis article has such a weird framing. It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists. But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. The Parisian residents living there throughout the year do. Maybe because it’s CNN, an American outlet, they’re focused on the “tourist”, but these benefits have mostly accrued to Parisians. Also, the 4% increase in traffic jams is minuscule when compared to other large cities across the world (outside of maybe NYC, since it implemented congestion pricing over that period). Paris has not escaped the wrath of the SUV, and a large part of the congestion cities across the world are seeing is solely down to cars becoming bigger.
- lefrenchy 7mo ago[flagged]
- Schiendelman 7mo agoHave you ever tried to park an SUV versus parking a sedan?
- obsidianbases1 7mo agoGreat point. Additionally, driving a small sedan myself, if there is a parking spot (not parallel, normal lot spot) in between two SUVs, there is a good chance that spot is useless, even in my small car. Just last night, I was parked perfectly (I had to stop and admire my work because what follows), but still had to squeeze out with my door undoubtedly touching the SUV, and it wasn't even a large size SUV. I really hope waymo takes of and makes it economical to stop owning a car, and reduce the necessity of parking lots
- consp 7mo ago> there is a good chance that spot is useless, even in my small car. Totally off topic but I've seen two smarts side-by-side in one parking spot, on a right angle to the parking spot making exiting the spot easy. Now that's efficient. And they still were less parked on the road than any big SUV or worse.
- calvinmorrison 7mo agofewer cars per foot, less visibility, etc? If there's a sedan in front of me I can see whats going on, if there's a UPS box truck, i cannot even see the light 150 feet away.
- troupo 7mo agoHere's a helpful comparison https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/opel-astra-1998-coupe-vs-volvo-xc90-2024-suv/ https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/opel-astra-1998-cou...
- InsideOutSanta 7mo agoThat's an amazing website; thanks for linking it. Apparently, lengthwise, my car easily fits between the wheels of a Ford F-150 without even touching them. My car's full height is substantially below where the F-150's windows begin. That car could probably drive over my car and barely even notice it.
- curtisblaine 7mo agoNot so helpful; the cars are from two different generations at two different price points. Try https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bentley-flying-spur-2019-sedan-vs-volvo-xc90-2024-suv/ https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bentley-flying-spur...
- airstrike 7mo agoAlso why are front and rear not overlays
- vel0city 7mo agoYou're calling out different price points while then choosing a $200k car. Which, you picked that car because it's an exceptionally long sedan. How about we choose a different SUV? https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bentley-flying-spur-2019-sedan-vs-chevrolet-suburban-2020-suv/ https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bentley-flying-spur... I see far more suburbans on the road than all models of Bentley. People aren't choosing SUVs because they're smaller than sedans. They're choosing them because they're bigger.
- Macha 7mo agoBecause old and new cars never have to interact on the road?
- 7mo ago
- kibwen 7mo agoOne of the major problems with cars is the terrible lack of density. Per-occupant, a car occupies more space on the roadway than any other form of passenger transport. And as cars get larger, that lack of density gets even worse. There's only so much space on the road, so something has to give.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- efavdb 7mo agoWhen I look at traffic in my city, I rarely see it caused by full packing. Rather throughout seems to be the issue.
- lukeschlather 7mo agoThroughput is directly proportional to the volume of cars, and SUVs have larger volume. Technically perhaps surface area, but there is a psychological effect to height. I believe people also give taller vehicles more space as a rule.
- marcosdumay 7mo agoThroughput in congestion is determined mostly by how quickly drivers react to the opportunity to move and how many points of attrition are in a path. Both of what are impacted by the number of cars and how well they break or accelerate, not by their size. There's space to claim large car cause attrition, but that's completely dependent of the local properties of the streets.
- kibwen 7mo agoThe footprint of the car matters. When cars get 5% longer, the same number of people in cars takes 5% more roadway, which adds up quickly, because the difference between smoothly-flowing traffic and jammed traffic is a fragile equilibrium dominated by breakpoints. Furthermore, heavier cars accelerate and decelerate slower than lighter cars, which has a compounding effect on decreasing overall throughput.
- vel0city 7mo agoYou have a fixed amount of space to put stuff. If the stuff gets larger, can you put more or less stuff in that space? So now we have at least the same number of people trying to put their stuff in that fixed size space, but their stuff got bigger, does that make it easier or harder for them to put their stuff in that space? Will they have to compete more or less for that space? Seems like a pretty obvious one to me.
- magicalhippo 7mo agoHere the large SUVs make everyone else drive slower in the city, because they're so big the driver has poor visibility and thinks they need several feet more than they do in clearance, and so drive almost in the middle of the road. Others then have to go real slow to not get dinged up on either side.
- frnx 7mo agoThe new large cycling strips that appeared in the last 5-6 years are so good. At commute time there are frequently jammed with /cyclists/, but let's face it it's miles better than being stuck in a car. I shudder to think about the alternative where each cyclist was instead alone in a small car, this wouldn't even fit on the roads.
- suddenlybananas 7mo agoI do wonder how many cyclists in Paris are really replacing cars versus replacing metro usage. Obviously, it's still good for people to cycle as well since the metro can be insanely crowded at times, but living in Paris, my impression is that the people who cycle are the kinds who would have been unlikely to own a car in any case.
- saltysalt 7mo agoExactly.
- nchagnet 7mo agoThat's a really good point, I hope at the very least it enables a "car -> public transport -> bikes" flow. So even if these people were taking the metro, all that extra metro space can accomodate car-owners who wish to switch.
- martinald 7mo agoIt depends though. At least in London a lot of cycleways were made by removing bus lanes and replacing them with high quality segregated cycle lanes. This has led to a big increase in %age terms of cyclists in London, but a fairly significant decline in bus passengers. I think roughly 300m/yr cycle journeys were added, but bus has lost 500m pax/yr (mainly because of increased congestion making them less and less attractive). Note this isn't all down to bus lane removal, but it's a significant part of it.
- kergonath 7mo ago> I do wonder how many cyclists in Paris are really replacing cars versus replacing metro usage. That’s not necessarily a problem, particularly for saturated lines like the 13.
- iamkonstantin 7mo agoI think it’s no easy task to reform a city away from being car-centric. In my home town of Ghent (in Belgium), we’ve had several iterations of a traffic plan that gradually reduces the number of parking spaces, rises taxes and car related costs, makes streets one way or deprioritises cars (e.g. a car doesn’t have priority over a bike anymore) etc. It’s not easy but the city today is a lot more liveable than it was when all this started.
- skeletal88 7mo agoBut then public transport has to improve also. You cant make owning a car impossible without offering alternatives.
- tikhonj 7mo agoNone of the changes in the comment make owning a car impossible, they just make driving marginally less privileged over walking and biking.
- the_biot 7mo agoNo, it's worse than that. The city council very much implemented an anti-car (harassment) policy, to the point that car owners felt hounded by their own council's policies. It seriously wasn't a matter of "marginally less privileged".
- stingraycharles 7mo ago> But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. You’re missing the point: tourists are good for the city. If Paris gets a reputation of being polluted, tourism will decline.
- zamadatix 7mo agoParis is consistently somewhere in the top 10 cities worldwide by number of tourists per year and this is an extremely important factor to the city. Even if if Le Monde was writing this in French the impacts to/from tourism would be relevant to the article.
- goldenarm 7mo agoTravelers are more sensitive to sudden changes. I got sick in Sicily on day one of my vacation because of how bad the air was.
- dismalaf 7mo ago> Paris has not escaped the wrath of the SUV, and a large part of the congestion cities across the world are seeing is solely down to cars becoming bigger. Europeans don't drive Suburbans. They drive crossovers that are, if anything, shorter than the equivalent sedan or wagon.
- seanmcdirmid 7mo agoSo do Americans in many cites like Seattle.
- dismalaf 7mo agoFair. When I'm in Canada I do see enough big trucks and SUVs though, versus Paris or Prague (the two places in Europe where I regularly visit/live) where the number is basically zero.
- bluesounddirect 7mo agoI agree, CNN has always had a weird angle to its bias. I am by no means a FOX news nut . I really think a lot of american "news" now is similar to How The WWF ( World Wide Wrestling Federation/ World Wrestling Entertainment) isn't a Sport. CNN , FOX, MSNBC/MSNOW , Newsmax etc aren't news but unfunny entertainment.
- dwg465 7mo agoI mean it’s a “CNN Travel” article…of course it’s going to focus on Paris as a travel destination.
- dfxm12 7mo agoCleaner air is still good for tourists & the article is part of the Travel section of this publication.
- zahlman 7mo agoWhen did the fad for compact cars end? Where did all these SUVs come from? Why do drivers want to lug all this extra weight and space around with them all the time?
- pas 7mo agoin the US it has a few factors, one is that trucks are exempted from some mileage requirements, so suddenly manufacturers started making "legally truck" cars
- yulker 7mo agothe default car should have been a one person car. we split a normal one lane into two narrow lanes.
- kube-system 7mo agoIn some places it is https://adventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Hero-Getting-round-SE-Asia-on-a-scooter-Taiwan-Photo-credit-Unsplash-andrew-haimerl-476824.jpg https://adventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Hero-Gettin...
- gostsamo 7mo agoThe way I've heard it from drivers, suvs gives you elevation to observe the traffic and the mass to make your bad behavior problem of the other side while you gain real numbers safety.
- mitthrowaway2 7mo agoThat's a pure negative sum game though. The elevation gives you only a relative improvement in visibility if other vehicles don't increase in elevation in response, at the cost of sightlines for other road users and especially pedestrians, unless they wear platform shoes. The same of course goes with mass. Usually this kind of negative-sum-prisoner's-dilemma incentive matrix is resolved by government intervention which changes the payoff structure.
- II2II 7mo agoThings I noticed right off the bat: framing it as a tourist verses locals issue, a complete lack of numbers backing that claim, and the few numbers presented in the article have any context. I realize this is a travel article, but it seems to be more of a propaganda piece. Take the claim that the locals hate the changes. Well, the mayor was reelected. So they claim the voter turnout was low and people were complaining, so people obviously don't support it. Sorry, you can't make that conclusion. Under ordinary circumstances, 100% turnout would only tell you the overall support for a particular candidate or party, not a particular policy. A low turnout may reflect an electorate who is not particularly passionate in any of the issues presented in the election, or it may mean something else. It was probably something else in the 2020 elections because those were anything but ordinary: they fell during the peak of pandemic uncertainty (i.e. March to June). So a flimsy assertion based upon flimsy evidence. Then there are the scanty numbers without context. A 4% increase in traffic jams since 2015 and 31% decline in bus use between 2018 and 2024. First of all, the words "bus use" sounds highly selective. It looks like the Paris metro has been expanding and modernizing rapidly in recent years, which would both take load off of busses and be disruptive to transit users. Oh, and that pandemic thing raises its head again. I don't know about Paris, but a lot of cities took a hit to transit ridership during the pandemic and some are claiming to reach pre-pandemic levels only now. Also, cyclists tend to be the whipping boy for traffic congestion. I can't speak for Paris, but the reality in my parts are that population growth and a surge in construction have been far more disruptive than cycling infrastructure. Sorry about the rant, but I'm sick and tired of the views of one segment of the population completely overriding the views of another segment of the population ... especially when there are assertions based upon assumptions and flimsy evidence.
- stackghost 7mo ago>But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. First impressions matter, though. When you fly into e.g. New York and they pop the door open you get that whiff of exhaust fumes. The city reeks. Vancouver on the other hand it smells like the ocean. Any improvement of air quality does matter for tourists and residents.
- 0xf8 7mo agoAgreed the tourist POV center focus is bizarre AF. it’s almost like they were afraid to ask Parisians or even other French natives regularly frequenting Paris what they thought and so they just went with tourists are happy…
- bluGill 7mo agoTourists get the majority of the benefit because residents of paris are smoking which is makes clear air not really a benifiet for them. I thought the above needed a /s, but a check shows 30% of the people in France smoke. (I can't find city stastics)
- stefs 7mo agoi kinda seem to remember that this is a bit misleading and the rates are surprisingly different than expected. i'm too lazy to check the sources right now, but gemini gives me a 15% daily smoker rate for paris, while it's ~30% for detroit, 21% for philadelphia, 10% for new york, 5% for L.A.
- fsckboy 7mo ago>This article has such a weird framing. It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists. it's not a weird framing, it's a clearly marked travel piece on "CNN Travel" the French don't read that, they read French newspapers etc.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- delichon 7mo agoIn an American city I would bet on the mobility impaired people to win the cage match against the fewer cars people. They are tougher than they look. Edit: The responses reasonably talk about the officially mobility impaired people. I was thinking more about the unofficially mobility impaired people by obesity, like me. French obesity rates are ~16% compared to ~42% in the US. That contributes to a fierce US constituency for cars.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoHuh? Fewer cars seems like a win to those who really rely on them. Could probably wind up with more accessible spots if done right.
- kevinklaes 7mo agoFewer cars overall should increase the availability for those who need it. Same for drivers overall but most can’t see past the first step which is reducing lanes and parking.
- wiether 7mo agoA city with less cars is a net positive for mobility impaired people. It frees space for people (wider sidewalks...), reduce the risks of navigating the streets, and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots. Less cars also means less mobility impaired people. Cars create them through crashes and a lifetime of sedentariness. Finally, it should be noted that most of the time when someone says "what about mobility impaired people?", when debating reallocating public space to people instead of cars, they are not mobility impaired themselves and don't actually care about them. They just try to guilt shame their opponents to win.
- dmix 7mo ago> and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots. The article mentions there's now constant traffic jams for city buses in Paris. It seems best for people who can cycle, walk, or people who already live in the city and don't need to travel much.
- consumer451 7mo agoComplete tangent, but I met my equally nerdy brother in Paris last month. It was my first time, and his fourth. We stayed South of the Republique metro station. After the literal 30th indie Manga [0] shop that we walked by, I asked him: "how are all these shops financially viable?" He said: "look inside." Holy crap, they all had customers inside! I had no idea that Japanese culture has such a strong presence in the heart of Paris, in the middle of Europe. [0] I should be clear, this was not just Manga. There were so many cool indie retro video game shops that it blew my little mind. I should probably get out of my Silesian village more often.
- b0rtb0rt 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme
- consumer451 7mo agoCool! Thank you for this information! Very interesting.
- Palomides 7mo agofrance has a really strong tradition of comics, it's not just manga
- alamortsubite 7mo agoI learned about la nouvelle manga recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nouvelle_manga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nouvelle_manga
- bombcar 7mo agoIt’s not just France; most of Europe. Barks and Don Rosa are better known there than in their home country.
- goldenarm 7mo agoPedestrianization of neighborhoods like Rivoli did decrease shopping at first, but ended up exploding again once people got used to it.
- goldenarm 7mo agoI moved from LA to Paris, my mental and physical health improved dramatically. I don't even take the subway, walking and biking are enough where I live. Hopefully we can reach the comfort of dutch cities within a decade.
- vovavili 7mo agoI was more comfortable living in Paris than living in a Dutch city because I was able to live in a banlieue. Biking here is more developed, and that's a plus. But having my job, my living space, my friends and my favorite weekend activities spread across Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague does take a bit of a toll. I wish The Netherlands did have a much less restrictive housing policy.
- goldenarm 7mo agoInteresting ! My comparison was indeed limited, I only lived in center of Den Haag as a foreigner. Decentralization has its pros and cons, but Paris is way too centralized around Chatelet sometimes.
- black_puppydog 7mo agoFrance as a whole is way too centralized on Paris and it's actually hurting the country. If you do read French, there is a very interesting book from 2024 (IIRC) about this. It's called "Quand le parisianisme écrase la France". Before reading this book I always thought Germany (where I grew up) was the exception for being more decentralized. But it looks like actually France is way more centralized even compared to other pretty centralized countries.
- pfannkuchen 7mo agoHow is it hurting the country? Japan seems fine with it. Or maybe it’s a scapegoat?
- 7mo ago
- tom-blk 7mo agoOnly rich people get to drive now
- throwawaytea 7mo agoI go to Berkeley Ca often on weekends. As a kid we'd go to SF too because why not. But now it's another $8+ for the bridge, and even if you find street parking it's another $2 an hour anywhere you might want to jump out for a few minutes. Basically it's an extra $20 to get the opportunity to spend your money in SF. So now I haven't been to my favorite coffee shop or pizza place in years. Oh well.
- NoraCodes 7mo agoWhy not take the train...?
- throwawaytea 7mo agoLoud, dirty, and stuck in a confined space with people doing acrobatics, or panhandling, or angry. I wouldn't take BART if you paid ME $20 to go into SF.
- dpark 7mo agoThis is a tired and unhelpful refrain. Only rich people fill their cars with gasoline without wincing at the price. Only rich people get to own 7 houses. Only rich people get to fill their pools in the middle of a drought. There are a lot of things that “only rich people get to do”. Reducing the number of people who engage in destructive activities is a good thing, even if it means only rich people can still do it.
- Y-bar 7mo ago> An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. - Enrique Peñalosa Londoño
- rossant 7mo agoI've lived in Paris for 20 years without even having the driver's license.
- whatever1 7mo agoOf course you can reduce highways and infrastructure and reduce traffic. But you also choked access to the city. And no public transportation does not fix the problem. It helps a bit, but at the end of the day biggest part of far commuters are gradually cut off. If decentralization is the target, then just state it.
- goda90 7mo agoMany cities in the world have many thousands of far commuters arriving by train every day. And many of those people even live in single family homes and own cars.
- Zigurd 7mo ago> choked access to the city Citation needed. Pedestrian and cyclist friendly cities have more vibrant street life, and are more attractive places to live. I've never heard of car restrictions leading to more suburbanization.
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- rsynnott 7mo agoI would assume that if you’re commuting to Paris from far away, the train is generally _quicker_, tbh. AIUI the RER is mostly 140km/h quality lines.
- LaGrange 7mo ago"There was a rise in hospitalizations of pedestrians and cyclists" looks at the reason CARS.
- saltysalt 7mo agoCyclists hitting pedestrians.
- consumer451 7mo agoI used to cosplay as a bike messenger in Seattle. I did not follow the rules at all on my ride to work. There were few bike lanes, and a lot of morons rode on the sidewalks. I have only been to Paris once, but the cyclists were much more sane in my experience. The bike lanes were clear, and for the most part they stopped at a red light.
- saltysalt 7mo agoIf car usage is going down but pedestrian injuries are going up? The pedestrians are not crashing into one another with greater frequency...
- consumer451 7mo agoYeah, my experience was anecdotal. Also, cyclists can be assholes. However, they have less inertia. What I would like to see is mortality rates of pedestrians in Paris in general. That might be the actually interesting trend.
- saltysalt 7mo agoI would wager it's the usage of payments and ignoring of pedestrian lights by cyclists is a big factor. As a pedestrian, I've had FAR more encounters with aggressive cyclists than aggressive drivers (also anecdotal). Makes walking downtown more stressful.
- chiefalchemist 7mo agoSlightly off-topic but NYC went through a similar process when congestion pricing met legal battle after legal battle. Long to short, there was a calculated effort to make midtown less and less vehicle-friendly. The "hack" was to take streets / aves and repurpose those for pedestrians. Special walking lanes, more "park cafes", bike lanes, etc. None were stated as being anti-vehicle - as that would open up legal challenges - but that was obviously the intention.
- cguess 7mo agoAnd it worked, there's multiple studies showing that retail business in the neighborhoods that limited car accessibility is up while pollution and noise is down and for those who choose to drive into the city, parking is easier.
- Shitty-kitty 7mo agoIts been great for those that can afford to live in Manhattan. For us living in the other borrows its been horrible. The honking is now non-stop.
- cguess 7mo agoI'm in Brooklyn, I'm not sure what you mean? How would it affect the outer boroughs?
- Shitty-kitty 7mo agoHere across the 59th, traffic is definitely worst. With the BQE the daily shit-show that is is (never ceases to amaze me, how people get in accidents on a highway that rarely get over 35mph.) The best way was actually thru the FDR. Now everyone just uses Vernon Blvd which is only accessible thru local streets.
- pastel8739 7mo agoBut in fact the end goal wasn’t to remove vehicles, it was to reduce congestion, emissions, etc. Those things are caused by vehicles, so policies to remove them will affect vehicles, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that their motivation is anti-vehicle.
- saltysalt 7mo agoI think Paris has bigger problems to worry about.
- rwmj 7mo ago> I think Paris has bigger problems to worry about. Say what you mean to say.
- dest 7mo agoThe housing market is a bit broken: either expensive private housing or affordable publicly managed one, but very hard to get. People often cannot relocate. Big debt. Security, with addicted errands in some districts.
- saltysalt 7mo agoWell put. Lots of people in the comments have a nostalgic vision of Paris it seems.
- saltysalt 7mo agoJust did, it's the worse city in France. A few cycle lanes won't fix it.
- orwin 7mo agoHave you been to St Etienne or Limoges ? If we talk >80k sized French cities, Paris is in the middle of the pack. Maybe on the tail end (if you don't have a lake or fast access to a sea I can windsurf on, you loose a lot of points by default), but clearly not the worse.
- youknownothing 7mo ago[flagged]
- Lionga 7mo agoThe amount of brain farting someone can do the associated less cars, more bikes to cities being full of drunk tourists is truly something
- otherme123 7mo ago> It's happened in London, where a clear anti-car agenda is being disguised as a pro-clean air agenda. I don't know about London, but in Spain there is no disguise: you can find pro-clean air and pro-human strategies. Pro-clean limits, or straight ban, the access of ICE vehicles to some zones. Pro-human/anti-car limit or ban circulation or park for any car in certain zones.
- tpm 7mo agoWell a big reason for speed limits in cities is safety, that doesn't change with EVs. Another thing you mention is collectivism but cars are a very inefficient private use of public space, both roads and parking, so when such space is scarce it makes sense to restrict them.
- rimbo789 7mo agoYes it is ideological: cars kill cities, kill communities and are bad for everyone involved. They are dangerous to drivers and non drivers alike and are deeply anti social. We need less cars everywhere period. Putting cars in cities was also deeply ideological. It was about segregation and as a way to extract as much resources from people as possible. The imposition of cars was about turning people into consumers who only point was to purchase goods and services. We didn’t choose cars- they were pushed on societies through a decades long propaganda campaign.
- nonethewiser 7mo ago>Yes it is ideological: cars kill cities, kill communities and are bad for everyone involved. They are dangerous to drivers and non drivers alike and are deeply anti social. We need less cars everywhere period. You lost me at"We need less cars everywhere period." Not everywhere is a dense city.
- rapht 7mo agoThis article omits so many negatives from the "cyclist's paradise" vision of Hidalgo's 2 terms that I don't know where to start. Families are the first casualties: the Paris metro is nowhere near accessible to strollers except if you are willing to go to the chiropractor after each week end, and using your car - hell, even parking your family car - is a no go as soon as there is some kind of hipster sports event or just as soon as you are after 10am on week end mornings. Local parks and generally streets are so dirty that you have to wash your children from head to toe as soon as they have set foot outside. And I'm not even talking about used seringes and broken glass in certain parts of the city. I'm actually so ashamed of my city at this point.
- dadoum 7mo agoAbout the accessibility issue in the Paris metro: this can be mitigated by using the buses (that's not the best experience but it works fine), and in some parts of Paris (in my experience, east and suburbs) people usually quickly help you in the stairs with your stroller (it's not convenient or comfortable to rely on others but in practice it seems to work). Anyway this is not like Paris mayor has any power on that, the transport authority though announced a few years ago that the main priority after the Grand Paris Express will be making the historical Paris network accessible. And fortunately after two years hopefully your kid can walk and you can carry it without a stroller. > Local parks and generally streets are so dirty that you have to wash your children from head to toe as soon as they have set foot outside. Maybe if it is a newborn, and if you don't bring the stroller nor any clothes, on rainy days it can be that bad. Don't get me wrong, Paris is not a clean city, there are empty nitrogen tanks, puffs and cigarettes lying on the ground pretty much in every arrondissement, but syringes, even on the colline du crack I can hardly remember having seen even one (but it is very dirty there! with packaging, paper, cardboard, bottles). I still think there should be a higher priority on sanitation but I also think you are exaggerating a bit.
- bombcar 7mo agoStroller access makes the USA look like a paradise compared to an old metro Europe. A week with a double stroller in Paris will make you appreciate ADA wheelchair ramps, kerb cuts, and elevators.
- Tade0 7mo ago> “She is constantly criticized, but still reelected: I’ve never understood it,” says Lionel Pradal, a bistro owner on the bustling Rue des Martyrs. “Parisians never go out and vote, and then after they complain. This is the problem with French people, it’s always the same.” This is somewhat of a public secret, but few people ever stay in Paris for longer than say 10 years and thus aren't that attached to the city. It's noticeable in how few people voted in Hidalgo's referendums. The city has been losing citizens in favour of its suburbs for close to two decades now (if not much longer really) and this is a trend which shows no clear signs of reversing.
- bombcar 7mo agoThe US has had cities like that, where it’s a perpetually cycling (in both senses of the term heh) mostly-young group of renters who move out to the suburbs when they get older and start families. If “done well” neighborhoods preserve their character somewhat because the replacement people are basically the same, but in other cases the neighborhoods change drastically every ten years.
- gus_massa 7mo ago> Parisians never go out and vote, and then after they complain. Wikipedia says that 70% of the people voted. Is it mandatory there? Here in Argentina it's mandatory, but weakly enforced. We get also a 70% of people voting. Anyway, the big problem are bubbles, probably all the friends of the guy don't like the current mayor and complain.
- mrb 7mo agoI live in Paris and bike nearly every day, with my electric bike, or sometimes the city's velib rental bikes, sometimes private rental bikes (Uber, Dott, Voi). I love the drastic push to add more bike lanes, and reduce car lanes. I don't own a car in this city. Don't need one.
- black_puppydog 7mo agoPeople keep saying Hidalgo's policies made people angry, but then voter turnout when she actually asks for confirmation of her policies is low. For example, 2024's vote on whether to triple the parking fees for big SUVs. [1] Turnout was tiny, but the measure passed. Well what does that mean? It certainly doesn't mean that there is a huge wave of enthusiasm for the measure. But conversely it also means there's not a huge wave of anger about it. It's not like the automotive lobby didn't try hard to create one; the media coverage was actually kind of crazy at the time. And with the low turnout, even a small mobilization would have been sufficient to reject this measure. But it didn't materialise. So when I read articles like this one from CNN, I just have to ask myself what the agenda is behind jazzing this up as much. [1]: https://www.lerevenu.com/reduire-impots/conseils-impots/paris-la-tarification-du-stationnement-speciale-suv-approuvee-a-pres-de-55/ https://www.lerevenu.com/reduire-impots/conseils-impots/pari...
- bombcar 7mo agoI cannot read the fiery letters, but it’s quite possible, depending on how the affected metro vs the voting block overlaps, that those who vote aren’t those complaining. Also complaining is easy, I could do it right now here on HN from any bathroom in the world; voting is comparatively much harder.
- alamortsubite 7mo agoI've noticed in my city that a lot of the complaining about impinging upon the car-centric status quo comes from people who live outside the city.
- dwedge 7mo agoMeasures like this always seem unfair to me if they aren't announced a few years in advance. A car is a large investment and people may have made different choices knowing that the rules will change. Same with the tax per mile for Electric cars in the UK. Instead of encouraging motorists to make better choices, they just end up feeling part of a money grab
- 7mo ago
- the_real_cher 7mo agoBiker supremacy engaged.
- paganel 7mo agoYes, she's the poster-child for gentrification, that's why France is about to have a far-right government in the near term. But I guess she has made some Parisian bobos really happy, good for her.
- StyloBill 7mo agoBig cities in France never vote far-right, and the PS (left) candidate is leading the polls in Paris' next election, so I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Gentrification is hardly a cause for far-right coming to power.
- transcriptase 7mo agoVancouver did the same thing. Now remaining parking is just filled with luxury vehicles with MSRPs that indicate you could charge $100 an hour and they wouldn’t care. Nice of the wealthy politicians to get the riffraff off the road so the guy driving a Brabus G-Wagon, Rolls, or 911 Turbo can commute and park in peace. The poors can sit on packed busses with methheads.
- frugalmail 7mo agoHmmm... "Mayor of Paris drastically reduces productivity of city by removing parking spaces"
- StyloBill 7mo agoYes because wasting 2 to 3 hours in traffic every day surely makes people more productive.
- kgwxd 7mo agoNot The Onion?
- wao0uuno 7mo agoShe can do the same to my city. Fuck cars. I'd rather have air to breathe and space to live.
- mono442 7mo agoWhat’s good about turning a city into a tourist attraction? I don’t understand the way European communists think.
- p0w3n3d 7mo agoI live in Krakow and use car everyday*. There is virtually no possibility I will get my kids to school in the morning using public communication, mainly because the school is 4 kilometres away. City is so pro-clean-air and eliminate-parking-spaces and remove-cheap ekhm I mean polluting,-cars but meanwhile does nothing except for selling more and more ground for building flats. Not schools not hospitals not child daycare centres, but flats... ____ * Always going to work by bicycle if possible, but if I have violin lesson or doctor's appointment I am not able to because the distances would be too long
- egman_ekki 7mo agoYou can try an electric bike for those longer distances. It’s really fun to ride if you find a good one.
- eps 7mo agoEspecially in the rain, with a kid on a bolted-on backseat behind you and while sharing the road with cars that don't want you to be there. Just throw in an electric motor and will suddenly become fun.
- p0w3n3d 7mo agoKids are too big for bolted on seat sadly...
- alamortsubite 7mo agoThe good news is soon they'll be able to pedal themselves. Krakow is a great city. Did you try an electric bike? They make 8 km seem like nothing.
- stefs 7mo ago> Less successfully, the road redesign has also seen a reported increase in hospitalizations among cyclists and pedestrians. well, with a lot more people walking and cycling this is to be expected. the article doesn't mention changes in accidents involving cars though. > For young, trendy and able-bodied Parisians ... i live next to a bike path. the elderly make up a a significant amount of the cyclists, probably because they don't trust themselves to drive a car anymore.
- CHB0403085482 7mo agoHere's an opinion about bicycling in Paris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-1YNAmWlk
- alamortsubite 7mo agoParis is changing fast for the better; it's a great video but I feel it's already out-of-date.