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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

Mostly it makes it impossible to drive in Paris. When I come to Paris from the UK, I now try to fly because gare du nord is surrounded by a gigantic moat of traffic jams. Not sure it is a win for the environment.

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As if there weren't traffic jams to/from the airport? You're in Paris, which has extensive public transport. Just use that!

And in the roads in the airport.

Maybe take a local train onward from one of the other forty platforms? By several counts that is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan so of course it’s a busy area.

I wouldn’t seriously consider driving to St Pancras either barring a taxi for an early trip.

Traffic jams are caused by cars. Just look what's in front of you 99% of the time. Cars make it dangerous/inconvenient/slower to use more reasonable (which means smaller) means of transportation. It's high time we stop prioritizing them and giving them 90% of city space.

If there are literally enough people in an area that you physically cannot fit a car with safe following distance for everyone there then maybe forcing them all into cars isn't the best way to solve congestion?

Your statement really confuses me. You say Gare Du Nord because presumably you've been taking the Eurostar. Do you then take a rental car either way? (from GdN or from the airport). Seems like a nitpick to excuse your behaviour: that the traffic is bad in one specific area of Paris (as if it's bad only around there), so it means you'd have to take the plane...

uber/taxi. Metro doesn't really work for the local leg beside being filthy and with very long connections (chatelet) + luggage.

It really isn’t that bad unless you’re a total snob.

Well, having a few more pieces of the incomplete puzzle, my thought would be, maybe you can take the metro 1 or 2 stations to a less jammed area and then Uber from there. But well, maybe that's out of the question if you can't deal with the "filthy" conditions.

Unlucky, perhaps don’t add to it? :)

why does anyone need to drive in paris

... and why would you want to?

Commercial traffic needs to drive - trucks and vans need cannot easily be replaced with public transport. I live on a busy road in Cambridge UK. At rush hour the traffic is about 50% commercial. I don't know what the proportion is in Paris, but my expectation is that the roads would still have lots of motor vehicle traffic even once you convert everything that can be to bike/public transport.

I would suggest that if people only used motor vehicles when absolutely necessary the roads would be blissful.

> At rush hour the traffic is about 50% commercial.

Note that the removal of the other 50% of traffic would easily shift the road from a traffic jam (Level of Service E or F) to a free-flowing road (LOS C). Even if only a fraction of the overall traffic is removed, traffic would easily get down to LOS D.

This is exactly why encouraging other modes of transportation (cycling, walking, bus, train, etc) actually causes big improvements for all road users.

Why does commercial traffic drive during rush hour

Good question. I'm thinking of morning rush hour because that I did a traffic survey then. I noticed a lot of building trades vehicles. All the trades people seem to want to be at their site for the day by 8.30am. I guess that is so they can do a full day's work before it gets dark (which is at 3.30pm in winter). There is also a lot of food suppliers delivering in time for catering teams to make lunch in schools, offices, cafes etc.

I probably shouldn't have called it rush hour. The traffic is busy from 7am until 7pm on weekdays.

During the crazy pandemic situation I'd much rather be driving in my own car than chilaxing on a bus with forty random people. Driving has it's place.

No it doesn't, feel free to bike if you don't want to ride the subway

indeed, public transportation is for poor people

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