Hacker News Reader

Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

I was in Paris a few weeks ago and while I think they have decent bike infrastructure, the car infrastructure was terrible.

In Manhattan (which has 4x the population of Paris) you can get an Uber and go a few km in maybe 15-20 minutes. In Paris it’s an hour+. Sure, stealing infrastructure from cars to give to bikes will make biking quicker, but it’s a zero-sun game. You’re basically stealing resources from people who are elderly, disabled, have families, etc. to prioritize bicyclists. Great for some people at the expense of others.

View on HN

> you can get an Uber and go a few km in maybe 15-20 minutes. In Paris it’s an hour+.

From where to where? That's not my experience at all.

> it’s a zero-sun game

It's not, given that you fit way more people on bikes that you would if they were driving cars.

Public transportation is also meant to be usable by the people you mentioned (especially families), you can debate whether they currently foot the bill, but staying stuck on cars is not the solution.

> You’re basically stealing resources from people who are elderly, disabled, have families, etc. to prioritize bicyclists.

I am really sick of this "think of the children" argument for why the US needs to persist in this dysfunctional car-centric model, particularly when they're applied to the only part of the country with halfway decent transportation alternatives. I live in lower Manhattan, we need LESS cars and we're going to get it sooner or later. If you don't like that, please stay out of the city, you have practically the entire continent of cities already suited to live your car-centered suburban life.

Old people, young people, poor people, disabled people: they can't drive. It adds up to a lot of second class citizens.

A friend of mine is a quadruple amputee. He cannot drive, but he can use his motorized wheelchair in bike lanes and travel independently.

They can (and do in most of Europe) take public transport.

Manhattan has not 4x the population of Paris. NYC has.

The idea is to make the street accessible for all, so everyone can walk around easily everywhere. The bike lanes are there, so that even elderly and kids feel safe to cycle.

Also Paris being gridlocked has been the case since forever.

100% right. there is also a very weird feeling when you see paris mayor hating so much on cars but loving cabs so much (the g7 taxi, biggest taxi company in france, is a gigantic donator to the socialist party and has been for decades)

at the end her dream is for paris to be copenhagen , a city for the rich people living in the center. if they re healthy theyll bike if they re old theyll have a cab or private driver (just like our dear mayor) and of course lets not forget rich tourists who will ride cabs to go by hermes bags.

this is totally disrespectful toward people living in suburbs and having the need to commute by car

While I mostly agree with your points, I think it's fair to say that commuting by car to Paris proper has been absolute hell for a while now.

Parking is horrendously expensive, and it's not always covered by the employer, especially for people not very high up the ladder (think secretaries and even "higher-up" outsourced personnel).

I can understand wanting to limit cars and push public transit. But boy, do I feel that PT has been on a steady decline for many years. So people get squeezed from both sides. So there's still an absurd number of cars on the road around rush hour.

I can't wait for the new metro lines to open and see how things will change. But I think the main issue is the extreme centralization: every company wants to be in Paris proper or La Defense. There are only so many holes you can dig under a city.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com