How Paris Kicked Out the Cars
April 4, 2023 6:24 AM Subscribe
A city once remade for voitures has transformed itself into an unlikely utopia for cyclists and pedestrians. What can it teach us? [Slate longread, via Kottke]
Relatedly, Paris held a referendum on shared e-scooters this weekend, with very low turnout 7.5% of Paris residents voted 89% against keeping shared e-scooters in the city. [TechCrunch]
Thank you for posting this. What a great collection of research and interviews and stories. Also very helpful as I'm going to be in Paris for a couple of days in June, and it's good to know what's changed since the last time I was there 15+ years ago.
posted by dywypi at 7:23 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by dywypi at 7:23 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
Before Paris could be carved up by expressways, resistance mounted over the familiar objections that also characterized highway revolts in the United States: destruction, displacement, pollution, the oil crisis... By the 1990s, anti-car forces were playing offense.This reminds me of how many highways in cities, going all the way back to Robert Moses, have been purposely put through disadvantaged minority neighbourhoods in order to make the opposition to highway building easier to overcome. Did this dynamic (or lack of it) play a role in Paris?
posted by clawsoon at 7:49 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Glad to hear about these initiatives. I will note that as a tourist last summer who got around pretty much on the Vélib, its not quite the bike heaven it might be. Yes, better than riding in NYC and other US cities, but cars in Paris are not shy and there are not nearly enough bike-only lanes like there is in the Netherlands. Of course, there are also many fewer large, faster streets going through Paris, so car-bike accidents are probably less lethal than in the US.
Only to say that if you go riding in Paris - as you should! - it will not always be like those lovely photos of bicycle only roadways.
posted by RajahKing at 7:50 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Only to say that if you go riding in Paris - as you should! - it will not always be like those lovely photos of bicycle only roadways.
posted by RajahKing at 7:50 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
RajahKing, bike lane construction is continuing today in Paris so they’re still working on it, outside my apartment right now the bike lane is being widened.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:52 AM on April 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 7:52 AM on April 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
This reminds me of how many highways in cities, going all the way back to Robert Moses, have been purposely put through disadvantaged minority neighbourhoods in order to make the opposition to highway building easier to overcome. Did this dynamic (or lack of it) play a role in Paris?
They were going to put a freeway ramp in front of Notre Dame.
posted by ocschwar at 8:30 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
They were going to put a freeway ramp in front of Notre Dame.
posted by ocschwar at 8:30 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of how many highways in cities, going all the way back to Robert Moses, have been purposely put through disadvantaged minority neighbourhoods in order to make the opposition to highway building easier to overcome. Did this dynamic (or lack of it) play a role in Paris?
While the anticar action of Paris is laudable, see Banlieues for one way paris has "dealt" with all those poor disadvantaged minorities. It ain't a wonderland, that's for sure.
posted by lalochezia at 8:41 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
While the anticar action of Paris is laudable, see Banlieues for one way paris has "dealt" with all those poor disadvantaged minorities. It ain't a wonderland, that's for sure.
posted by lalochezia at 8:41 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
They were going to put a freeway ramp in front of Notre Dame.
No, no it's Highway to Hell / Stairway to Heaven
posted by chavenet at 8:45 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
No, no it's Highway to Hell / Stairway to Heaven
posted by chavenet at 8:45 AM on April 4, 2023 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of how many highways in cities, going all the way back to Robert Moses, have been purposely put through disadvantaged minority neighbourhoods in order to make the opposition to highway building easier to overcome. Did this dynamic (or lack of it) play a role in Paris?
Yeah - absolutely. Paris is defined by its city walls, throughout its history - and these walls were defended. That city wall was the one thing that defined where/what Paris WAS and where/what Paris WASN'T. Although it has grown in its history, one day it was decided that where the wall was will be where it always will be, and that Paris would grow no further. Paris is not a big city. I found the metro almost ridiculous to use, as riding a bike was easy enough, and many drunk nights saw me just walk home from across the city.
Anyways back to what Paris is, and isn't: outside the walls are where the unwashed masses lived, then and now. The more financially desperate parts of the city-state of Île-de-France are outside Paris proper - particularly in the North part. Where the wall last stood is now a giant highway that surrounds the city.
Just like how interstate highways in the States cut off neighborhoods, the Boulevard Périphérique is a real physical barrier between Paris and its banlieues. It's physical, geographic, but there's also social status and economic factors.
posted by alex_skazat at 8:47 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah - absolutely. Paris is defined by its city walls, throughout its history - and these walls were defended. That city wall was the one thing that defined where/what Paris WAS and where/what Paris WASN'T. Although it has grown in its history, one day it was decided that where the wall was will be where it always will be, and that Paris would grow no further. Paris is not a big city. I found the metro almost ridiculous to use, as riding a bike was easy enough, and many drunk nights saw me just walk home from across the city.
Anyways back to what Paris is, and isn't: outside the walls are where the unwashed masses lived, then and now. The more financially desperate parts of the city-state of Île-de-France are outside Paris proper - particularly in the North part. Where the wall last stood is now a giant highway that surrounds the city.
Just like how interstate highways in the States cut off neighborhoods, the Boulevard Périphérique is a real physical barrier between Paris and its banlieues. It's physical, geographic, but there's also social status and economic factors.
posted by alex_skazat at 8:47 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
it's Highway to Hell / Stairway to Heaven
That's Montmartre.
posted by praemunire at 8:51 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
That's Montmartre.
posted by praemunire at 8:51 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
This reminds me of how many highways in cities, going all the way back to Robert Moses, have been purposely put through disadvantaged minority neighbourhoods in order to make the opposition to highway building easier to overcome. Did this dynamic (or lack of it) play a role in Paris?
My wife was watching a show about Paris in the 20s last night, and I walked by as the presenter showed Le Corbusier's plan to get rid of the cramped, unhealthy old buildings that made up Paris - bulldoze it all, put up rectangular skyscrapers and a 10-lane highway running between them. The street-level drawings looked remarkably 21st century - except for the vehicles on the road, which were of 1920s vintage. These aren't the exact drawings on the show, but you get the idea.
Thankfully that plan did not come to pass.
posted by Leviathant at 9:04 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
My wife was watching a show about Paris in the 20s last night, and I walked by as the presenter showed Le Corbusier's plan to get rid of the cramped, unhealthy old buildings that made up Paris - bulldoze it all, put up rectangular skyscrapers and a 10-lane highway running between them. The street-level drawings looked remarkably 21st century - except for the vehicles on the road, which were of 1920s vintage. These aren't the exact drawings on the show, but you get the idea.
Thankfully that plan did not come to pass.
posted by Leviathant at 9:04 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
My partner and I are big in urban cycling/utility cycling as transportation and we've been to Paris a few times in the last decade (2014, 2017, 2018 and 2022). It has been nothing short of incredible to see how the city has expanded its bike infrastructure each time we visited.
The most recent time we were gobsmacked by the change around La Bastille, eliminating that huge giant traffic circle and replacing it with something more human-scale, then connecting to Rue de Rivoli all the way down past the Louvre in a huge, huge bike lane; honestly, I biked that with happy tears streaming down my face that they achieved such ... impossibility? We then navigated the gap at Place de la Concorde (needs fixing, yikes!) and then rode down the Champs Elysées of all places in the world. I had followed the progress of these changes and knew they were there, but riding along that huge distance, along stretches that would be unimaginable to convert into active transportation lanes line that, is absolutely incredible. And then the quais below it, just amazing. That kind of cultural change is huge.
The most amazing thing to me is not even that. It's that you talk to people in Paris that in Canada or the US would be frothing at the mouth about bike lanes and often they express that it is *not enough.* That climate change is real and coming for us and that all these green changes are not fast enough, not broad enough to save us and that more needs to be done. Obviously, not everyone feels that way, but lots more do than would ever be aware of and supportive of it in Anglo North America.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:12 AM on April 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
The most recent time we were gobsmacked by the change around La Bastille, eliminating that huge giant traffic circle and replacing it with something more human-scale, then connecting to Rue de Rivoli all the way down past the Louvre in a huge, huge bike lane; honestly, I biked that with happy tears streaming down my face that they achieved such ... impossibility? We then navigated the gap at Place de la Concorde (needs fixing, yikes!) and then rode down the Champs Elysées of all places in the world. I had followed the progress of these changes and knew they were there, but riding along that huge distance, along stretches that would be unimaginable to convert into active transportation lanes line that, is absolutely incredible. And then the quais below it, just amazing. That kind of cultural change is huge.
The most amazing thing to me is not even that. It's that you talk to people in Paris that in Canada or the US would be frothing at the mouth about bike lanes and often they express that it is *not enough.* That climate change is real and coming for us and that all these green changes are not fast enough, not broad enough to save us and that more needs to be done. Obviously, not everyone feels that way, but lots more do than would ever be aware of and supportive of it in Anglo North America.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:12 AM on April 4, 2023 [10 favorites]
Weird that trips declined 60% but crashes only declined 30%.
posted by Mitheral at 9:12 AM on April 4, 2023
posted by Mitheral at 9:12 AM on April 4, 2023
In related news across the Channel, bicycles have now passed personal cars as the most common vehicle in the City of London (the square mile central business district). In 2010, they'd passed cars during the morning rush hour (there is a lot of commuter cycling), but bikes are now the most common vehicle [PDF} from 7 AM to 7 PM. In 1999, there were 25 motorized vehicles for every bicycle; today there's only 2.3. Motor vehicle volumes are down to 35% of their 1999 values, while bike volumes are up 387%.
I particularly like the figure on the last page of the 2018 report [PDF}, which showsat that time, the sidewalks took up 9% of the space and moved 51% of the people, the buses took 9% of the space and moved 19% of the people, and bikes took up 4% of the space and moved 5% of the people. On the other hand, cars, taxis and motorcycles were given 53% of the space, and they only moved 19% of the people.
posted by Superilla at 9:55 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
I particularly like the figure on the last page of the 2018 report [PDF}, which showsat that time, the sidewalks took up 9% of the space and moved 51% of the people, the buses took 9% of the space and moved 19% of the people, and bikes took up 4% of the space and moved 5% of the people. On the other hand, cars, taxis and motorcycles were given 53% of the space, and they only moved 19% of the people.
posted by Superilla at 9:55 AM on April 4, 2023 [6 favorites]
Weird that trips declined 60% but crashes only declined 30%.
Car trips within Paris itself declined 60%; trips between Paris and the suburban areas declined 33% (inner suburbs) to 38% (outer suburbs), and by smaller amounts within and between the suburbs. The outer suburbs (the Grande Couronne) actually had car trips increase, albeit proportional to population growth.
I didn't see a link to source the 30% crash number, so one possibility is that it's not Paris proper but includes some suburban areas (Paris + the inner Petite Couronne suburbs had a 24% reduction in car trips; all of Île-de-France together had a 5% reduction.
Assuming it is Paris only, there are two more explanations -- one is that crashes in Paris are not only a function of car trips within Paris; some of them are a result of trips between Paris and the suburbs (which declined closer to 30%) and some are a function of trips from suburb to suburb, in the same way that there are crashes in New York that are a result of Connecticut-to-New Jersey car trips. And those declined at less than 30%.
Finally, the car trips in Paris declined 60%, with public transit increasing 22% and walking increasing 60%. (Bike trips tripled, but there's still only one bike trip for every 10 transit or 20 pedestrian trips). I assume that the majority of the car trips that disappeared were the shorter ones; a 10 km car trip has more chances for a crash than a 2 km trip.
posted by Superilla at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Car trips within Paris itself declined 60%; trips between Paris and the suburban areas declined 33% (inner suburbs) to 38% (outer suburbs), and by smaller amounts within and between the suburbs. The outer suburbs (the Grande Couronne) actually had car trips increase, albeit proportional to population growth.
I didn't see a link to source the 30% crash number, so one possibility is that it's not Paris proper but includes some suburban areas (Paris + the inner Petite Couronne suburbs had a 24% reduction in car trips; all of Île-de-France together had a 5% reduction.
Assuming it is Paris only, there are two more explanations -- one is that crashes in Paris are not only a function of car trips within Paris; some of them are a result of trips between Paris and the suburbs (which declined closer to 30%) and some are a function of trips from suburb to suburb, in the same way that there are crashes in New York that are a result of Connecticut-to-New Jersey car trips. And those declined at less than 30%.
Finally, the car trips in Paris declined 60%, with public transit increasing 22% and walking increasing 60%. (Bike trips tripled, but there's still only one bike trip for every 10 transit or 20 pedestrian trips). I assume that the majority of the car trips that disappeared were the shorter ones; a 10 km car trip has more chances for a crash than a 2 km trip.
posted by Superilla at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
We got to Paris often and I agree that the improvement is something that is happening fast. Just between one visit late last year and a visit this year you could already see everything getting better - more bicycles, more walkable spaces. And it has an impact on city life. Paris is also livelier than I've known it for years.
It is also true that it pales when compared to the Netherlands, where I live. But that's really irrelevant. The good thing is that Paris is getting better. I also see Brussels and Ghent in Belgium improving dramatically. Unfortunately, Spain that is lagging a bit behind but the overall trend I have seen is European cities becoming greener and more pedestrian-friendly.
Most importantly, as others have commented, cities like Paris and Brussels can be compared to American cities and so there are fewer excuses for why more cities cannot kick out cars.
posted by vacapinta at 10:38 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
It is also true that it pales when compared to the Netherlands, where I live. But that's really irrelevant. The good thing is that Paris is getting better. I also see Brussels and Ghent in Belgium improving dramatically. Unfortunately, Spain that is lagging a bit behind but the overall trend I have seen is European cities becoming greener and more pedestrian-friendly.
Most importantly, as others have commented, cities like Paris and Brussels can be compared to American cities and so there are fewer excuses for why more cities cannot kick out cars.
posted by vacapinta at 10:38 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Weird that trips declined 60% but crashes only declined 30%.
Assuming it is Paris only, there are two more explanations -- one is that crashes in Paris are not only a function of car trips within Paris; some of them are a result of trips between Paris and the suburbs (which declined closer to 30%) and some are a function of trips from suburb to suburb, in the same way that there are crashes in New York that are a result of Connecticut-to-New Jersey car trips. And those declined at less than 30%.
Or that people more likely to crash their cars are also more likely to continue driving despite all of these measures being taken.
posted by Etrigan at 10:44 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Assuming it is Paris only, there are two more explanations -- one is that crashes in Paris are not only a function of car trips within Paris; some of them are a result of trips between Paris and the suburbs (which declined closer to 30%) and some are a function of trips from suburb to suburb, in the same way that there are crashes in New York that are a result of Connecticut-to-New Jersey car trips. And those declined at less than 30%.
Or that people more likely to crash their cars are also more likely to continue driving despite all of these measures being taken.
posted by Etrigan at 10:44 AM on April 4, 2023 [4 favorites]
Unfortunately, Spain that is lagging a bit behind
*cough* Madrid. I've also been there three times in the past decade (2013, 2015, 2017 and going again in May this year) and have seen little change (I love Madrid in spite of that). The shared 30km/hr "bike" lanes (ciclocarriles) are a joke and no real bike infra has been added since I first went in 2013. The bike lane through Puerto del Sol does not count because there are always people walking in it. Seville had that big push back in the early 10s and is reasonably good, and Valencia and San Sebastian are doing fairly well but no one is really competing with Barcelona.
I was once pretty active in the Twitter cycling community and it used to be that if you mentioned how terrible Spain's bike infrastructure was this whole swarm of Spanish vehicular cyclists* used to descend on your tweet and tell you off. They've disappeared in recent years but I'm not sure if Spain is getting better in that sense or if I eventually managed to block them all.
*Vehicular cyclists: people - usually older white men - who believe that people just need to be educated to cycle safely and then everyone would be comfortable doing it and that people on bikes should mix with motorized traffic and inexplicably that bike lanes are dangerous segregation that reduce rights for cyclists; these dudes basically held back North American progress on cycling safety for decades. I get that they came from a time where there was danger of cycling being banned on roads *at all* but they never gave up that mindset.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:27 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
*cough* Madrid. I've also been there three times in the past decade (2013, 2015, 2017 and going again in May this year) and have seen little change (I love Madrid in spite of that). The shared 30km/hr "bike" lanes (ciclocarriles) are a joke and no real bike infra has been added since I first went in 2013. The bike lane through Puerto del Sol does not count because there are always people walking in it. Seville had that big push back in the early 10s and is reasonably good, and Valencia and San Sebastian are doing fairly well but no one is really competing with Barcelona.
I was once pretty active in the Twitter cycling community and it used to be that if you mentioned how terrible Spain's bike infrastructure was this whole swarm of Spanish vehicular cyclists* used to descend on your tweet and tell you off. They've disappeared in recent years but I'm not sure if Spain is getting better in that sense or if I eventually managed to block them all.
*Vehicular cyclists: people - usually older white men - who believe that people just need to be educated to cycle safely and then everyone would be comfortable doing it and that people on bikes should mix with motorized traffic and inexplicably that bike lanes are dangerous segregation that reduce rights for cyclists; these dudes basically held back North American progress on cycling safety for decades. I get that they came from a time where there was danger of cycling being banned on roads *at all* but they never gave up that mindset.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:27 AM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
My wife was watching a show about Paris in the 20s last night, and I walked by as the presenter showed Le Corbusier's plan to get rid of the cramped, unhealthy old buildings that made up Paris -
Imagine Paris just a few decades beforehand. Before indoor plumbing. When water was carried home from the well and water from the water closet carried away to the sewer in vats. And food and other necessaries brought in by animal carts.
Le Corbusier's plan was driven in large part by him not being entirely right in the head, but not entirely.
It's the same thing with the beautiful and now-cherished casbahs of the Arab World. They're much nicer now that they're retrofitted with full plumbing and the amount of donkey riding in them is manageable.
posted by ocschwar at 11:35 AM on April 4, 2023
The "New York City isn't Amsterdam"thing is so ridiculous I can't believe anyone even tries it anymore. As though modern-day Amsterdam sprang fully formed out of the ground, instead of being the result of policy decisions and the political will to manifest them.
posted by holborne at 12:50 PM on April 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by holborne at 12:50 PM on April 4, 2023 [9 favorites]
Imagine Paris just a few decades beforehand. Before indoor plumbing. When water was carried home from the well and water from the water closet carried away to the sewer in vats. And food and other necessaries brought in by animal carts.
Yup! I feel pretty well-versed on the topic - I live in Philadelphia at a house that's right up against where they stopped bulldozing to install I-95 - a block and a half away from the Ben Franklin Bridge. Sort of a one-two punch that destroyed the waterfront here. And in researching the history of my 18th century abode (18th century in terms of the brick walls and the archaeological finds below it, but not much else), I came to understand a lot of the perspective behind decisions like waterfront highways, or Le Corbusier's vision of Einstürzende Altebauten. It's funny you mention plumbing - the whole reason I fell into this particular corner of history is because of a privy under our house.
To grossly oversimplify: In 1750, my neighborhood was upper-middle-class merchants, building a shipping industry. By 1850, it was mostly a warehouse district, and by the time a gigantic bridge decimated the ferries along the waterfront just as the depression hit, the buildings that hadn't burned down were all in terrible repair, and were mostly flophouses and taverns. Poor immigrants and exploited people crowding in a dirty part of the city left to its own filthy devices. Take a couple of world wars and mix in the explosion of automobile culture - and when the federal government approves practically unlimited cash for a highway system - to those in charge of cities, this 'solved' multiple problems.
Philadelphia has an wonderfully ornate Second Empire style City Hall, and around the time Le Corbusier was drawing his plans for a modern Paris, they were planning to demolish all of City Hall save for the tower, replacing it with a traffic circle. For better or for worse, the city's never been great with money, and City Hall was too expensive to demolish. Thankfully!
Frankly, if they hadn't bulldozed everything and put a highway in, I wouldn't have had the opportunity in 2016 to afford living where I do - a total gut job, mostly surrounded by vacant lots, with a highway spewing trash and noise 24/7 just 100 feet away makes for a pretty good bargain on an old building. Similar housing stock a mile or two south of here is far, far more expensive - although as Philadelphia finally reactivates its waterfront, property value around me has shot way, way up, and with changes in land tax, the vacant lots broke their 30 year run of being undeveloped, and are now apartments and condos - including immediately next door, dramatically reducing the highway noise in our house.
I appreciate that I live in an American city, designed for horses and pedestrians, where I can look down the street and see 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st architecture all piled together. The mid-century 'urban renewal' plans were a big miss, and are the least interesting parts of the city in every way imaginable, but I do understand why the impulse to tear it all down was there. After all, nearly every time I endure air travel, I think "tear it all down and start over" - and yet I recognize that adaptive reuse is a slow and expensive process. Visit the edges of Albany or St Louis and there's incredible housing stock there... abandoned, stripped, unhealthy in almost every way. And if you've known those areas to have always been run down, it feels practical to let go, and want to start over from scratch.
I'm glad I live in a city that often tries to hold its history in high regard, even if it can't really afford to right now.
posted by Leviathant at 1:12 PM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yup! I feel pretty well-versed on the topic - I live in Philadelphia at a house that's right up against where they stopped bulldozing to install I-95 - a block and a half away from the Ben Franklin Bridge. Sort of a one-two punch that destroyed the waterfront here. And in researching the history of my 18th century abode (18th century in terms of the brick walls and the archaeological finds below it, but not much else), I came to understand a lot of the perspective behind decisions like waterfront highways, or Le Corbusier's vision of Einstürzende Altebauten. It's funny you mention plumbing - the whole reason I fell into this particular corner of history is because of a privy under our house.
To grossly oversimplify: In 1750, my neighborhood was upper-middle-class merchants, building a shipping industry. By 1850, it was mostly a warehouse district, and by the time a gigantic bridge decimated the ferries along the waterfront just as the depression hit, the buildings that hadn't burned down were all in terrible repair, and were mostly flophouses and taverns. Poor immigrants and exploited people crowding in a dirty part of the city left to its own filthy devices. Take a couple of world wars and mix in the explosion of automobile culture - and when the federal government approves practically unlimited cash for a highway system - to those in charge of cities, this 'solved' multiple problems.
Philadelphia has an wonderfully ornate Second Empire style City Hall, and around the time Le Corbusier was drawing his plans for a modern Paris, they were planning to demolish all of City Hall save for the tower, replacing it with a traffic circle. For better or for worse, the city's never been great with money, and City Hall was too expensive to demolish. Thankfully!
Frankly, if they hadn't bulldozed everything and put a highway in, I wouldn't have had the opportunity in 2016 to afford living where I do - a total gut job, mostly surrounded by vacant lots, with a highway spewing trash and noise 24/7 just 100 feet away makes for a pretty good bargain on an old building. Similar housing stock a mile or two south of here is far, far more expensive - although as Philadelphia finally reactivates its waterfront, property value around me has shot way, way up, and with changes in land tax, the vacant lots broke their 30 year run of being undeveloped, and are now apartments and condos - including immediately next door, dramatically reducing the highway noise in our house.
I appreciate that I live in an American city, designed for horses and pedestrians, where I can look down the street and see 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st architecture all piled together. The mid-century 'urban renewal' plans were a big miss, and are the least interesting parts of the city in every way imaginable, but I do understand why the impulse to tear it all down was there. After all, nearly every time I endure air travel, I think "tear it all down and start over" - and yet I recognize that adaptive reuse is a slow and expensive process. Visit the edges of Albany or St Louis and there's incredible housing stock there... abandoned, stripped, unhealthy in almost every way. And if you've known those areas to have always been run down, it feels practical to let go, and want to start over from scratch.
I'm glad I live in a city that often tries to hold its history in high regard, even if it can't really afford to right now.
posted by Leviathant at 1:12 PM on April 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
The "New York City isn't Amsterdam"thing is so ridiculous I can't believe anyone even tries it anymore. As though modern-day Amsterdam sprang fully formed out of the ground, instead of being the result of policy decisions and the political will to manifest them.
It's also ridiculous because it would be a relatively light lift for the central/dense parts of NYC to become much, much more friendly to bicycles and pedestrians. Things are already close together, and there is already public transit. (The greater NYC metro area, however, is very sprawly and would take a lot to improve, just like how in Paris the central areas are getting better fast but the outer suburbs have a long way to go before benefiting in the same way.)
posted by Dip Flash at 3:18 PM on April 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's also ridiculous because it would be a relatively light lift for the central/dense parts of NYC to become much, much more friendly to bicycles and pedestrians. Things are already close together, and there is already public transit. (The greater NYC metro area, however, is very sprawly and would take a lot to improve, just like how in Paris the central areas are getting better fast but the outer suburbs have a long way to go before benefiting in the same way.)
posted by Dip Flash at 3:18 PM on April 4, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's a damn good thing to get rid of those little scooters, and not just because they are all the time just dumped wherever -- one of my best friends gets around in a wheelchair.
But they are also a hazard for those trying to walk but also to the people who get on these things, not having the slightest idea of how dangerous they can be.
A nephew of mine was in town, thought that those things sure did look like fun, and it was fun, too, until he came to a hole in the asphalt and ended up with a broken elbow.
I've talked to docs in the ER twice (I end up in the ER *without* riding one of those damn scooters, dang it, last time two weeks ago, an amazing bike wreck) and they (ER docs) are pretty much unanimous that those things ought to be sent packing.........
posted by dancestoblue at 8:52 PM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
But they are also a hazard for those trying to walk but also to the people who get on these things, not having the slightest idea of how dangerous they can be.
A nephew of mine was in town, thought that those things sure did look like fun, and it was fun, too, until he came to a hole in the asphalt and ended up with a broken elbow.
I've talked to docs in the ER twice (I end up in the ER *without* riding one of those damn scooters, dang it, last time two weeks ago, an amazing bike wreck) and they (ER docs) are pretty much unanimous that those things ought to be sent packing.........
posted by dancestoblue at 8:52 PM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
For everyone who says "But NYC (or anywhere) isn't Amsterdam!", you can send them the updated "How did the Dutch get their cycle paths?" video by BicycleDutch (a remake of the 2011 video and writeup). It shows how much has changed since the 1970s and what led to, quoting holborne above, "the policy decisions and the political will to manifest them".
The photos of Amsterdam before these changes are almost unrecognizable today, which is one of the reasons that NotJustBikes thinks that the Netherlands is so intimidating to urban planners. One of their videos calls Copenhagen the achievable Amsterdam since it isn't as far along in the transition and hopefully shows the gradual way forward to improving biking (and scooting and walking) and reducing the need for cars.
posted by autopilot at 3:45 AM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
The photos of Amsterdam before these changes are almost unrecognizable today, which is one of the reasons that NotJustBikes thinks that the Netherlands is so intimidating to urban planners. One of their videos calls Copenhagen the achievable Amsterdam since it isn't as far along in the transition and hopefully shows the gradual way forward to improving biking (and scooting and walking) and reducing the need for cars.
posted by autopilot at 3:45 AM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
The political structure seems really important here: Downtown Paris remained politically independent, so socialist bike-loving downtowners got a socialist bike-loving mayor and changed the downtown to be nice for socialist bike lovers.
Here in Toronto we could've had the same thing except that conservative provincial leaders forced Toronto to merge with its suburbs 25 years ago precisely in order to smother this sort of downtown socialism.
posted by clawsoon at 2:02 PM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Here in Toronto we could've had the same thing except that conservative provincial leaders forced Toronto to merge with its suburbs 25 years ago precisely in order to smother this sort of downtown socialism.
posted by clawsoon at 2:02 PM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
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This is incredible.
Here in NYC people always say "New York City isn't Amsterdam!" but Paris and New York City are similar in a lot of ways. It just goes to show you what can happen with some real commitment to this kind of work, rather than doing things in piecemeal fits and starts.
posted by entropone at 7:06 AM on April 4, 2023 [27 favorites]