it sounds more like s/he is a disgruntled car-owning Parisian. clearly the old paradigm wont go gently into the night. his isn't even a difficult position to empathize with, considering the inconveniences caused by measures like this. ultimately, these inconveniences will be addressed by the market (supply/demand) or by other government directives. until 'not owning a car' is MORE convenient than owning one, we will continue to see this kind of commenter.
most of the disgruntled car-owning Parisian are actually from the suburbs anyway...
I don't even live in France...
In that specific case, they plan to close the only road that allows to cross the centre of Paris smoothly (no red light, can be driven in 4th/5th gear all the way).
Even if the number of cars decreases a lot, since the only alternative path is streets that are full of traffic lights and already quite jammed, the remaining cars will pollute much more.
I'm not sure that this will help decrease pollution in the mid-term.
> since the only alternative path is streets that are full of traffic lights and already quite jammed
Well, you can't fit more car into an already jammed street, so maybe fewer people will cross the center if it is much harder to do so?
It's actually the outcome. The same car will take a lot more time to make the same distance, polluting a lot more than if it was flowing quickly.
No it's not. Study after study has shown that building more roads doesn't speed up cars it just increases the number of cards and reducing roads doesn't slow down cars it just decreases the total number.
hmm I could see it being the case that each individual car contributes more to the pollution, but if the total number of cars is reduced in a given area at any given time, it makes more sense to me that the aggregate pollution would decrease, no?
It doesn't turn out this way. People don't rigidly stick to their cars when road capacity reaches its physical limits. As driving becomes less desirable, people adjust their behaviour. They drive less and use alternatives.