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Paris’ $160M Plan to Boost Cycling

81 points by prattbhatt 11y ago

cowardlydragon 11y ago
The bikeshare should refund money from your annual fee as you use it. Bikes on local trains is huge. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/if-an-electric-bike-is-ever-going-to-hit-it-big-in-the-us-its-this-one/375167/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/if-an-electric-bike-i...
awjr 11y ago
When it comes to cycling, a network is only as good as its weakest link. Seville had an eleven fold increase in cycling by 'simply' installing protected cycle lanes. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cycling-capital-southern-europe-bike-lanes http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cyclin... The golden rule is to segregate. Give cars, bicycles, and feet their own space. DO NOT mix. If somebody can make a choice to put their 6 year old child on a bike and cycle around a city, you've got it right.
- Someone 11y ago
  "Do not mix" is too expensive for smaller roads, and may not even be possible without tearing down buildings. Also "mix everything" is a viable option, too, if people behave themselves. The "woonerf" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf) is a very good solution for densely built neighborhoods (even in the USA, it seems: http://ithacavoice.com/2015/04/ithaca-housing-project-include-dutch-style-woonerf-roads/ http://ithacavoice.com/2015/04/ithaca-housing-project-includ.... In a similar fashion, I see little wrong with cyclists driving on sidewalks. Problems only start when they drive faster than pedestrians in a busy street. In other words: if they do not acknowledge that they are guests on the sidewalk. That is fairly typical behaviour in the Netherlands. People will cycle through almost empty pedestrian-only zones at 10-15 km/hour, slow down to walking speed when coming close to pedestrians, and start walking, bike in hand, if things get really busy. Legal? Not everywhere, but this rarely gets you a fine.
- Jedd 11y ago
  Very much so. I've only explored small areas - generally the 'old' (tourist-friendly) areas of Seville, but all the cycling lanes felt safe, welcoming, thoughtfully designed, and well laid out. But also, Seville has one of those easily under-estimated features that engenders a great cycling experience, and consequently good chance of success with such a plan - it's relatively flat. Amsterdam enjoys a similar benefit, though I can't speak for Copenhagen on this aspect (those were the two extant 'cycling capitals' mentioned in the article).
- lovemenot 11y ago
  >> The golden rule is to segregate. Give cars, bicycles, and feet their own space. DO NOT mix. This seems too emphatic, given the counter-example of Japanese cities, which have few dedicated bicycle lanes, yet remarkably high rates of cycle usage.
  - akgerber 11y ago
    Japan is a very different country— one is not able to own a car without a certificate demonstrating they have an off-street place to park it (resulting in lower car ownership), and, more importantly, very narrow streets that largely preclude the kind of high speed motoring that's dangerous to cyclists.
  - buro9 11y ago
    Insurance solves that. The Japanese shifted liability onto larger vehicles. Just as most places will always treat a rear-shunt as being the fault of the car behind, hitting a cyclist is always the fault of the larger/motorised vehicle.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      Well, it's no magic bullet. Here (Finland) the insurance of motor vehicles always covers damages to bicyclists, even when the bicyclist is at fault (breaking a traffic rule) but that hasn't removed all car/bike collisions. Having segregated (and physically separated) paths for bikes works well though. They remove the fear that when you're riding straight, a lorry comes from behind and kills you outright. Here the paths are usually shared with pedestrians, and while pedestrians are annoying, they are few (compared to Japan...) and it works reasonably. Intersections are a bit of a problem, but the mistakes by car drivers are quite predictable (and being also a driver myself, I know why they happen), so I can watch out.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      same in Italy, but it just increases the chance of the driver just running off the scene. I guess one needs to match effectiveness of incentives with the local culture.
  - 11y ago
- odiroot 11y ago
  100% agreed. I used to be a driver, now I am only a pedestrian and a frequent cyclist. My city of birth and upbringing (Warsaw, Poland) has a huge problem of people not respecting each others' space. Unfortunately a lot of bike lines are just painted on sidewalks. This (and the fact there's not enough bike lanes) encourages cyclist to just drive around pedestrians, who sometimes also tend to drift onto dedicated bike lanes. It's terribly annoying to travel on foot during summer/autumn. You can easily get hit or at least shouted/honked at by a 'deranged' biker. Pedestrian/car and Cyclist/car relations are even more complicated. Now living in Berlin I have to say this city has mostly solved the issue. Majority of bike lanes are a (separated) part of the car lane and cyclist are encouraged to just mix with cars on low-speed streets (<30 zones). Annoyingly enough some (not many though, mostly deliveries etc.) cyclists completely disregard the signage and still ride on the sidewalks. Still, the roads seem to be really safe, hence most cyclists don't even wear helmets. I noticed drivers in here also pay more attention to what's happening around them. You rarely read about serious accidents involving bikes. Last one I remember it was a case of road rage where car driver beat a cyclist with a bat.
  - toothbrush 11y ago
    IMHO, bikes should get segregated lanes (and indeed perhaps on slower sections can share with cars, as you suggest), but cyclists should be fined Really Heavily if caught on sidewalks. Where i live now, cyclists have to do the traffic gladiator thing and muscle cars out of the way, and are usually honked at, even when on the "bike lane" (which is just a strip painted onto the car lane, woo hoo). This results in a lot of animosity between cars and bikes (and frankly, grave danger for cyclists -- we aren't 1000kg metal blocks travelling at 60+ km/h), and frequently sees cyclists picking on the next weaker party, which is pedestrians. It's a very frustrating situation, if only the smaller dead-centre-of-town areas were declared pedestrian / delivery / bike only, and the rest of the place were equipped with segregated bike lanes, it would be much safer, and pollution would be curbed, in one fell swoop. Just thinking back at the number of near-accidents (and real ones, mind you) i've had because cars just act as if bicycles are invisible, frustrates me no end. I feel the Dutch law's approach is great: treat car drivers as if they are wielding 1000kg death-machines. This is very close to the truth, and therefore the onus should be on the strongest/least endangered party to pay attention to what they're doing.
- bambax 11y ago
  > If somebody can make a choice to put their 6 year old child on a bike and cycle around a city, you've got it right. Thinking about it, there is some truth to this. I have kids and would NEVER dream of cycling with them in Paris; we put the bikes in the trunk of the car and go to a big park if we want to ride. If there were actual segregated bike lanes where there is zero chance of crossing a car (at any speed: I mean NO car) I might cycle with them in the city, and I admit it would be nice.
bertil 11y ago
Financial incentives do not make sense: having a car in Paris is already crazy expensive. During the 20 years I lived there, I cycled everywhere, and I had an almost weekly accident, always at the same three intersections -- cars running into stationary bikes, half the time openly on purpose (there is a bolo for a taxi driver for attempted manslaughter under my name: his plaque was unlegible on the camera, but him accelerating twice into my bike was clear). The local police knows those intersections, there are camera monitoring those. Those are on large axis, and have the largest concentration of tourists (about 50 people waiting at the light at any time of the day). If you want to make Paris a biking city, no need to spend millions; all the protected lanes become useless ever 50 m when an intersection shows up and dozens of car just want to run you over no matter what. Just ask Police to enforce laws on attempting to kill people and make clear that a car can be used as a weapon. You do not even need to budget their presence: they are already there, watching and helpless.
- bambax 11y ago
  I've lived in Paris for 45+ years. The problem with bicycles is that they don't respect road signs or traffic lights, which irritate the hell out of everybody else. It's true that many car drivers are very aggressive towards bicycle riders, but what you fail to mention is that everyone cheers for the car and not the bike... Personnally I ride a motorcycle; it was stolen last year and so I used bikes for about a month. Here are my observations, that I think are difficult to fix with money alone: - pedaling makes you hot and sweaty; you arrive at the office being a mess - when it rains you get super wet, much more than on a motorbike, because you have less protection and you don't carry special rain trousers with you at all times (whereas they're permanently stored on my motorbike) - also, when it rains, if you cover yourself up to avoid the rain, you get even hotter and sweatier - Paris isn't flat! (contrary to Amsterdam...) and some hills are very steep - some distances are irrealistic for bikes: I have two clients who are 15km apart and (to me) 15km on a bike is a fairly long ride All in all it seems bikes are mostly for tourists (who don't have to show up in an office at the end of their ride), during the summer (well, the part of the summer when it's not too hot) and for relatively short distances. But in the absence of bikes, tourists don't take a car, they mostly use public transports (or maybe an occasional cab), so I very much doubt more bikes mean less car traffic. There is another program in Paris that seems much more promising: Autolib, cheap electric cars that you can rent for a very short amout of time. Doubling that with electric scooters would be really great, IMHO.
aout 11y ago
Most of the big avenues in Paris already have separated bike lanes on either the sidewalk or the bus lane but the road (for regular cars) still takes 80% of the space. The goal here is to leave more space to pedestrians (like on the river front) and reduce the "car space" in the city. The cost of public biking in Paris (3$/month) is very very very small when you consider the cost of having a car (at least 200$/month) or taking the subway (around 70$ / month). One problem though, Paris has some hills and people tend to avoid these areas. Using your legs is great yes, healthy etc... but hey, we'd like electric bikes :)
- smcl 11y ago
  Genuine question: how did you come up with $3/month? Is that a rough estimate of expenses (maintenance etc) over a year divided by 12, or is there some Paris bike permit required?
  - conradfr 11y ago
    It's 29€ or 39€ for a yearly subscription to public bikes, I would guess he's referring to that : http://en.velib.paris.fr/Subscriptions-and-fees http://en.velib.paris.fr/Subscriptions-and-fees
acd 11y ago
I asked how much of cell phone that can be recycled, no one has answered the question yet. Thats a bit scary, don't look under that stone and ask that question kind of feeling. How much of electronics is recycled, how much can be recycled?
fungi 11y ago
Sounds like a utopian dream compared to here in Sydney where the roads minister is ripping up our miniscule cycle network and replacing it with "part time" cycle ways and loading bays.
ptaipale 11y ago
It's good to be ambitious, but the Paris goal of increasing share of trips from 5 % to 15 % in five years sounds somewhat unrealistic. I'd be surprised if you can double the numbers in five years. In Helsinki, the share of trips made by bike is 11 % and the goal is to reach 17 % by 2025, in ten years time. I think even that is ambitious but not entirely unfeasible. (However, it must be said that there seem to be vary many different ways to calculate the share of trips done on bike vs. other ways, and if you change the way you make statistics, you can of course indicate huge progress...)
cataflam 11y ago
> Paris has a pollution problem. Instead of the smoke from Gauloise cigarettes and the aroma of freshly baked bread, the air is packed with smog, an issue that got so bad one day last month, the city forcibly halved traffic by allowing only cars with odd-number plates to drive. Of course this could have nothing do to with Germany phasing out its nuclear power plants and having to reopen coal power plants instead. They massively increased the share of solar and wind in their energy production, but still need more traditional methods of power generation to cover when those 2 are not providing energy, hence more coal [1]. And coal is incredibly polluting. See [2] for example for CO2 emissions : > In July 2014, a group of NGOs published a study on the EU’s 30 worst CO2-emitting thermal power plants. German power stations featured six times among the 10 dirtiest. CO2 is not the problem for city pollution of course, it's the rest of the small particulate matter that is. [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy-transition-explained-in-6-charts https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy... [2] http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/24/coal-casts-cloud-over-germany-s-energy-revolution http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/24/coal-casts-cloud-over-g...
- legulere 11y ago
  What you're writing doesn't make much sense. You say CO2 is not the problem but yet link to stuff about it. Coal plants in Germany are really clean though and CO2 is the only real problem of it. NO2 and PM gets filtered out. Usage of coal stayed roughly the same in the last 10 years [1]. If you directly compare it with the amount 10 years ago it's a slight decrease. The real issue for pollution lies in different sectors. For instance around half of the PM pollution in Germany is caused by people using wood for heating. Cars are one of the biggest polluters in cities. [1] https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm click on year: all, annual, all sources
  - cataflam 11y ago
    Thanks for the link, I was misinformed.
- simias 11y ago
  That seems very far fetched to me. Why would the pollution created by german coal power plants accumulate in and around Paris? In my experience the big pollution episodes in Paris are when there's no wind to wash the smog away. It's definitely localized over the city (not that the air is not polluted elsewhere, it's just generally much worse in Paris).
iakh 11y ago
The weather is too poor here to make this a realistic solution. We try to velib as much as we can, but you can only reliably bike maybe 4 months out of the year if you're lucky. The remaining days are either too wet or too cold or both. No amount of bike lanes or police enforcement can change the generally miserable weather of Paris.
- toothbrush 11y ago
  I think it's safe to say the weather in Amsterdam or Copenhagen is at least as bad as in Paris. (disclosure: i didn't downvote you)
- clarry 11y ago
  How cold is too cold? (I cycle round the year in Finland)

81 points by prattbhatt 11y ago

The bikeshare should refund money from your annual fee as you use it. Bikes on local trains is huge. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/if-an-electric-bike-is-ever-going-to-hit-it-big-in-the-us-its-this-one/375167/ http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/if-an-electric-bike-i...

awjr 11y ago

When it comes to cycling, a network is only as good as its weakest link. Seville had an eleven fold increase in cycling by 'simply' installing protected cycle lanes. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cycling-capital-southern-europe-bike-lanes http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cyclin... The golden rule is to segregate. Give cars, bicycles, and feet their own space. DO NOT mix. If somebody can make a choice to put their 6 year old child on a bike and cycle around a city, you've got it right.

Someone 11y ago
"Do not mix" is too expensive for smaller roads, and may not even be possible without tearing down buildings. Also "mix everything" is a viable option, too, if people behave themselves. The "woonerf" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf) is a very good solution for densely built neighborhoods (even in the USA, it seems: http://ithacavoice.com/2015/04/ithaca-housing-project-include-dutch-style-woonerf-roads/ http://ithacavoice.com/2015/04/ithaca-housing-project-includ.... In a similar fashion, I see little wrong with cyclists driving on sidewalks. Problems only start when they drive faster than pedestrians in a busy street. In other words: if they do not acknowledge that they are guests on the sidewalk. That is fairly typical behaviour in the Netherlands. People will cycle through almost empty pedestrian-only zones at 10-15 km/hour, slow down to walking speed when coming close to pedestrians, and start walking, bike in hand, if things get really busy. Legal? Not everywhere, but this rarely gets you a fine.
Jedd 11y ago
Very much so. I've only explored small areas - generally the 'old' (tourist-friendly) areas of Seville, but all the cycling lanes felt safe, welcoming, thoughtfully designed, and well laid out. But also, Seville has one of those easily under-estimated features that engenders a great cycling experience, and consequently good chance of success with such a plan - it's relatively flat. Amsterdam enjoys a similar benefit, though I can't speak for Copenhagen on this aspect (those were the two extant 'cycling capitals' mentioned in the article).
lovemenot 11y ago
>> The golden rule is to segregate. Give cars, bicycles, and feet their own space. DO NOT mix. This seems too emphatic, given the counter-example of Japanese cities, which have few dedicated bicycle lanes, yet remarkably high rates of cycle usage.
- akgerber 11y ago
  Japan is a very different country— one is not able to own a car without a certificate demonstrating they have an off-street place to park it (resulting in lower car ownership), and, more importantly, very narrow streets that largely preclude the kind of high speed motoring that's dangerous to cyclists.
- buro9 11y ago
  Insurance solves that. The Japanese shifted liability onto larger vehicles. Just as most places will always treat a rear-shunt as being the fault of the car behind, hitting a cyclist is always the fault of the larger/motorised vehicle.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    Well, it's no magic bullet. Here (Finland) the insurance of motor vehicles always covers damages to bicyclists, even when the bicyclist is at fault (breaking a traffic rule) but that hasn't removed all car/bike collisions. Having segregated (and physically separated) paths for bikes works well though. They remove the fear that when you're riding straight, a lorry comes from behind and kills you outright. Here the paths are usually shared with pedestrians, and while pedestrians are annoying, they are few (compared to Japan...) and it works reasonably. Intersections are a bit of a problem, but the mistakes by car drivers are quite predictable (and being also a driver myself, I know why they happen), so I can watch out.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    same in Italy, but it just increases the chance of the driver just running off the scene. I guess one needs to match effectiveness of incentives with the local culture.
- 11y ago
odiroot 11y ago
100% agreed. I used to be a driver, now I am only a pedestrian and a frequent cyclist. My city of birth and upbringing (Warsaw, Poland) has a huge problem of people not respecting each others' space. Unfortunately a lot of bike lines are just painted on sidewalks. This (and the fact there's not enough bike lanes) encourages cyclist to just drive around pedestrians, who sometimes also tend to drift onto dedicated bike lanes. It's terribly annoying to travel on foot during summer/autumn. You can easily get hit or at least shouted/honked at by a 'deranged' biker. Pedestrian/car and Cyclist/car relations are even more complicated. Now living in Berlin I have to say this city has mostly solved the issue. Majority of bike lanes are a (separated) part of the car lane and cyclist are encouraged to just mix with cars on low-speed streets (<30 zones). Annoyingly enough some (not many though, mostly deliveries etc.) cyclists completely disregard the signage and still ride on the sidewalks. Still, the roads seem to be really safe, hence most cyclists don't even wear helmets. I noticed drivers in here also pay more attention to what's happening around them. You rarely read about serious accidents involving bikes. Last one I remember it was a case of road rage where car driver beat a cyclist with a bat.
- toothbrush 11y ago
  IMHO, bikes should get segregated lanes (and indeed perhaps on slower sections can share with cars, as you suggest), but cyclists should be fined Really Heavily if caught on sidewalks. Where i live now, cyclists have to do the traffic gladiator thing and muscle cars out of the way, and are usually honked at, even when on the "bike lane" (which is just a strip painted onto the car lane, woo hoo). This results in a lot of animosity between cars and bikes (and frankly, grave danger for cyclists -- we aren't 1000kg metal blocks travelling at 60+ km/h), and frequently sees cyclists picking on the next weaker party, which is pedestrians. It's a very frustrating situation, if only the smaller dead-centre-of-town areas were declared pedestrian / delivery / bike only, and the rest of the place were equipped with segregated bike lanes, it would be much safer, and pollution would be curbed, in one fell swoop. Just thinking back at the number of near-accidents (and real ones, mind you) i've had because cars just act as if bicycles are invisible, frustrates me no end. I feel the Dutch law's approach is great: treat car drivers as if they are wielding 1000kg death-machines. This is very close to the truth, and therefore the onus should be on the strongest/least endangered party to pay attention to what they're doing.
bambax 11y ago
> If somebody can make a choice to put their 6 year old child on a bike and cycle around a city, you've got it right. Thinking about it, there is some truth to this. I have kids and would NEVER dream of cycling with them in Paris; we put the bikes in the trunk of the car and go to a big park if we want to ride. If there were actual segregated bike lanes where there is zero chance of crossing a car (at any speed: I mean NO car) I might cycle with them in the city, and I admit it would be nice.

bertil 11y ago

Financial incentives do not make sense: having a car in Paris is already crazy expensive. During the 20 years I lived there, I cycled everywhere, and I had an almost weekly accident, always at the same three intersections -- cars running into stationary bikes, half the time openly on purpose (there is a bolo for a taxi driver for attempted manslaughter under my name: his plaque was unlegible on the camera, but him accelerating twice into my bike was clear). The local police knows those intersections, there are camera monitoring those. Those are on large axis, and have the largest concentration of tourists (about 50 people waiting at the light at any time of the day). If you want to make Paris a biking city, no need to spend millions; all the protected lanes become useless ever 50 m when an intersection shows up and dozens of car just want to run you over no matter what. Just ask Police to enforce laws on attempting to kill people and make clear that a car can be used as a weapon. You do not even need to budget their presence: they are already there, watching and helpless.

bambax 11y ago
I've lived in Paris for 45+ years. The problem with bicycles is that they don't respect road signs or traffic lights, which irritate the hell out of everybody else. It's true that many car drivers are very aggressive towards bicycle riders, but what you fail to mention is that everyone cheers for the car and not the bike... Personnally I ride a motorcycle; it was stolen last year and so I used bikes for about a month. Here are my observations, that I think are difficult to fix with money alone: - pedaling makes you hot and sweaty; you arrive at the office being a mess - when it rains you get super wet, much more than on a motorbike, because you have less protection and you don't carry special rain trousers with you at all times (whereas they're permanently stored on my motorbike) - also, when it rains, if you cover yourself up to avoid the rain, you get even hotter and sweatier - Paris isn't flat! (contrary to Amsterdam...) and some hills are very steep - some distances are irrealistic for bikes: I have two clients who are 15km apart and (to me) 15km on a bike is a fairly long ride All in all it seems bikes are mostly for tourists (who don't have to show up in an office at the end of their ride), during the summer (well, the part of the summer when it's not too hot) and for relatively short distances. But in the absence of bikes, tourists don't take a car, they mostly use public transports (or maybe an occasional cab), so I very much doubt more bikes mean less car traffic. There is another program in Paris that seems much more promising: Autolib, cheap electric cars that you can rent for a very short amout of time. Doubling that with electric scooters would be really great, IMHO.

aout 11y ago

Most of the big avenues in Paris already have separated bike lanes on either the sidewalk or the bus lane but the road (for regular cars) still takes 80% of the space. The goal here is to leave more space to pedestrians (like on the river front) and reduce the "car space" in the city. The cost of public biking in Paris (3$/month) is very very very small when you consider the cost of having a car (at least 200$/month) or taking the subway (around 70$ / month). One problem though, Paris has some hills and people tend to avoid these areas. Using your legs is great yes, healthy etc... but hey, we'd like electric bikes :)

smcl 11y ago
Genuine question: how did you come up with $3/month? Is that a rough estimate of expenses (maintenance etc) over a year divided by 12, or is there some Paris bike permit required?
- conradfr 11y ago
  It's 29€ or 39€ for a yearly subscription to public bikes, I would guess he's referring to that : http://en.velib.paris.fr/Subscriptions-and-fees http://en.velib.paris.fr/Subscriptions-and-fees

acd 11y ago

I asked how much of cell phone that can be recycled, no one has answered the question yet. Thats a bit scary, don't look under that stone and ask that question kind of feeling. How much of electronics is recycled, how much can be recycled?

fungi 11y ago

Sounds like a utopian dream compared to here in Sydney where the roads minister is ripping up our miniscule cycle network and replacing it with "part time" cycle ways and loading bays.

ptaipale 11y ago

It's good to be ambitious, but the Paris goal of increasing share of trips from 5 % to 15 % in five years sounds somewhat unrealistic. I'd be surprised if you can double the numbers in five years. In Helsinki, the share of trips made by bike is 11 % and the goal is to reach 17 % by 2025, in ten years time. I think even that is ambitious but not entirely unfeasible. (However, it must be said that there seem to be vary many different ways to calculate the share of trips done on bike vs. other ways, and if you change the way you make statistics, you can of course indicate huge progress...)

cataflam 11y ago

> Paris has a pollution problem. Instead of the smoke from Gauloise cigarettes and the aroma of freshly baked bread, the air is packed with smog, an issue that got so bad one day last month, the city forcibly halved traffic by allowing only cars with odd-number plates to drive. Of course this could have nothing do to with Germany phasing out its nuclear power plants and having to reopen coal power plants instead. They massively increased the share of solar and wind in their energy production, but still need more traditional methods of power generation to cover when those 2 are not providing energy, hence more coal [1]. And coal is incredibly polluting. See [2] for example for CO2 emissions : > In July 2014, a group of NGOs published a study on the EU’s 30 worst CO2-emitting thermal power plants. German power stations featured six times among the 10 dirtiest. CO2 is not the problem for city pollution of course, it's the rest of the small particulate matter that is. [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy-transition-explained-in-6-charts https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy... [2] http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/24/coal-casts-cloud-over-germany-s-energy-revolution http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/24/coal-casts-cloud-over-g...

legulere 11y ago
What you're writing doesn't make much sense. You say CO2 is not the problem but yet link to stuff about it. Coal plants in Germany are really clean though and CO2 is the only real problem of it. NO2 and PM gets filtered out. Usage of coal stayed roughly the same in the last 10 years [1]. If you directly compare it with the amount 10 years ago it's a slight decrease. The real issue for pollution lies in different sectors. For instance around half of the PM pollution in Germany is caused by people using wood for heating. Cars are one of the biggest polluters in cities. [1] https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm click on year: all, annual, all sources
- cataflam 11y ago
  Thanks for the link, I was misinformed.
simias 11y ago
That seems very far fetched to me. Why would the pollution created by german coal power plants accumulate in and around Paris? In my experience the big pollution episodes in Paris are when there's no wind to wash the smog away. It's definitely localized over the city (not that the air is not polluted elsewhere, it's just generally much worse in Paris).

iakh 11y ago

The weather is too poor here to make this a realistic solution. We try to velib as much as we can, but you can only reliably bike maybe 4 months out of the year if you're lucky. The remaining days are either too wet or too cold or both. No amount of bike lanes or police enforcement can change the generally miserable weather of Paris.

toothbrush 11y ago
I think it's safe to say the weather in Amsterdam or Copenhagen is at least as bad as in Paris. (disclosure: i didn't downvote you)
clarry 11y ago
How cold is too cold? (I cycle round the year in Finland)