How Paris Is Taking Back Its Streets from Cars | Hacker News Reader

How Paris Is Taking Back Its Streets from Cars

distilled.earth

71 pointsjseliger38 comments

It's amusing that their bike lanes have an occasional Jersey barrier. That prevents vehicles from running through the plastic dividers.

New York City had a problem with that. They did something similar. They used some anti-terrorism funds to upgrade some of the plastic dividers to anti-terrorism grade bollards. Not all of them. Just some of them. The ones that will stop a runaway cement mixer are not marked.

Traffic engineers in many places in the US are hesitant to install life-saving infrastructure if it risks scratching the cars of careless drivers. So kudos to NYC for being braver and making better decisions.

> They used some anti-terrorism funds to upgrade some of the plastic dividers to anti-terrorism grade bollards. Not all of them. Just some of them. The ones that will stop a runaway cement mixer are not marked.

This is a clever, cost effective mechanism to encourage compliance without breaking the bank.

I’ve joked to friends in SF that civic minded people should just come at night, pour some concrete into the plastic dividers, and go home. No-one wants to go to jail for this obviously, but it’s pathetic how little cities in the US do in terms on pedestrian infrastructure. The « slow streets » in San Francisco have dinky barriers on only half the lanes that you can run over with a car without scratching your bumper, it’s pathetic.

Really impressive how quickly they've done this. I'm sure there's been lots of growing pains, but I hope they can keep it up.

Considering there's been plans to reduce cars in Paris since at least Delanoë's time in office, so since 2001, I don't think it's been going that quickly; though for sure the city did use the reduction in car traffic during the Covid lockdown to do some more work on bike/bus lanes.

> The city’s transportation policies have been very popular. In 2020, Mayor Hidalgo promised to continue her bold redesign of the city during her successful re-election campaign.

it has been popular for people living in Paris, but people from the suburbs who either have to transit through Paris by car or who have seen an increase in car trafic because people have to go around Paris aren't big fans of her; but they don't really have their say in this (because they don't live in Paris, they don't vote in the municipal elections)

Honest question: for whom is it easier to travel into Paris by car than by transit? Having been to Paris only a couple of times, I found the transit options very convenient; although generally localised around the city center

I don't think there's that many cases, because going into Paris by car is such a miserable experience and most suburbs around Paris have a public transportation link to Paris (though some of the lines are unreliable and/or overcrowded). The issue is more from moving from suburbs to suburbs, which is heavily impacted by the reduction in trafic in Paris and the suburbs to suburbs transit is not well developed

I visit Paris regularly for business and it's getting worse every day don't believe the hype, it's transforming into and dystopian hellhole

Would you mind expounding on how it's getting worse? I'm not questioning that it is not, but most of what I hear about Paris reduce car traffic seems to be positive, and I'd like to hear more about your view point. Are commute times going up considerably? Are commutes less enjoyable? Is there more congestion of people (crowds) or bicycles, that has come in since the car reduction? Or is it something else that I never would've guessed? I really would be interested in hearing your point of view.

I've lived in Paris for 15 years. I don't quite know what this person's experience been here but my quality of life has definitely gone up in the last 5 years or so with the rise of the cycling population. This isn't solely due to Hidalgo's work creating more lanes; the inception of Lime and other such electric scooter companies, and the uptake of electric bikes (particularly with the city's public cycling company 'Velib') has made the whole experience quite frictionless. I will admit that car commutes have definitely become slower - notably due to the closing of the 'quais de Seine'. That being said, the city hasn't really slowed down and I now get to the the beautiful sites of the city on the daily, a minor tradeoff for the couple minutes extra in commute time.

Unlike pristine San Francisco which just keeps getting better every day the more car lanes they build.

This may work in a traditional city like Paris; but selling this vision in L.A. is a tiresome and offensive ruse to line developers’ pockets by deleting parking requirements from building projects, and other handouts that reduce the quality of life for existing residents by shifting burdens onto them without commensurate rewards.

I lived in LA for a year around 2010. I don't drive. LA has some amazing qualities for cycling: (1) Really damn wide streets. (2) Excellent weather. (3) Buses that let you throw your bike on a flip-down rack at the front. (4) Awesome nearby scenery and great views.

My understanding is, since living there, LA has embraced cycling. Good on you LA!

In life, there are two kinds of people: some people drive, and others are driven. - Non-driving successful executive and friend of the CEO of the first and only public company I worked for.

That on its own is not informative. WHERE in L.A.? Buses are subject to traffic like everything else, and they don't go everywhere at all hours.

Blanket statements like yours are not applicable to L.A., just as the aforementioned fantasy-based excuses for eliminating automotive infrastructure are not.

Of course, that doesn't stop the shamming and scamming. Here's another developer handout: Developers are now allowed to demolish a single house and replace it with 10 units of housing, no permits or review required (or possible). That means more trees cut down, more ground paved over and not retaining water, more blight. Meanwhile, massive Macy's and Fry's stores sit boarded up in dying malls in the center of vast parking lots that are growing weeds.

And developers get even more handouts under this legislation (SB9/10) if the neighborhood they're wrecking is near a "mass-transit corridor." You know what counts as "mass transit" under this fraud? ONE ZIPCAR in a four-block quadrant. One.

No word on what happens if that car gets wrecked, stolen, or otherwise removed. Do they tear the giant monoliths down?

I am up for bikes as legitimate transit, make no mistake. But that's another fun thing about L.A.: They put in poorly-executed bike lanes (and I do support and use bike lanes) but the lanes go for a few blocks and then just... disappear. You're riding along and then POOF. No more bike lane. Years later, nothing has changed in those spots. That's even more offensive: local politicians pander to NIMBYs with initiatives like "Vision Zero," then half-ass it and publicly congratulate themselves. Actually, that's too much credit; they quarter-ass it at best.

Oh, and the result of "Vision Zero?" INCREASED pedestrian fatalities: https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/pedestrian-deaths...

That's because nobody has the balls to ruthlessly combat the real threat to cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers: TEXTING while driving. It should be a DUI-level offense with the same penalties.

I've lived there for most of my life and was riding my bike at around the same time and my experience was very different. Every day I'd have people purposefully try to run me off the road while I was biking and some cities in LA don't allow you to ride a bike on the sidewalk. Your experience definitely depends on which part(s) of LA you're in

You lived in LA, you don't drive, and you think that cycling works?

Cycling worked in LA to get places? Really?

This is clearly a troll. You either spent all of your time in a tiny radius or you're just making it up completely. Things are 20-50 miles apart in LA unless you spend all of your time in one little neighbourhood.

I mean, it's nice on the beach.

I do think removing parking restrictions is hugely beneficial for communities (allowing developers to add more or less as they see appropriate for their situation). I'd recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking for some more background here.

Congestion pricing is another thing that really does overall improve the quality of life.

The problem with offering free public parking or trying to force developers to make free parking is that it is not free for the community at large.

My own parents (who I love) live by the beach in LA, and they have 3 cars for 2 people. The only reason they do this is because parking on the street is free. Parking is crowded, and 1-2 cars can't park at the beach because my parents are taking 1-2 slots they could have. And this is multiplied across the whole community.

I also am against parking maximums, which are starting to pop up. People should be able to decide what is the right amount of parking for their home or business.

In the 1920s, LA had the most extensive streetcar network in the entire world [1]. Now it's ruled by cars. Being a "traditional city" is not what makes or breaks designing a city around private automobiles -- it's entirely political.

LA can change back, just as Paris is doing.

[1] https://www.thereallosangelestours.com/what-happened-to-los-...

A streetcar network is not the same thing as walking and biking everywhere. Nobody said public transportation (in the form of trains) can't work in L.A. It just doesn't meaningfully exist.

My hunch is that in the first picture there was at least one person inside each car and they seemed to be going to work. In the second picture, there are a lot less people and they are definitely not going to work. Are they getting rid of people and jobs?

1) Those photos are probably taken at different times of day, so the destinations can differ a lot

2) The second photo may have less people in it, but it's a *much* more zoomed in perspective. It's pretty clearly at least a higher density of people.

3) What makes you think these people aren't going to work?

Clearly, if you aren’t in a car, you aren’t a serious person doing serious, important things. /s

4) Throughput is probably a better metric than density and that's hard to guess from static images.

1) Assuming that this is a one-way street for cars and the direction has not changed between the two pictures, it does seem approximately the same time of day based on the shadow angles.

But that doesn't tell us anything about day of week which could be a huge factor.

2) Assuming at least one person per vehicle, and assuming that the first stories of the buildings are about the same height in both photos in order to compare scales between the photos, the first seems to have a higher density of people.

During the same time period, working from home probably increased due to COVID

Weird hunches....

How do you know what the people in cars are doing? How do you know what the people are doing?

Cars take tons of space, and traffic means that they take it up for longer, and use the space even less efficiently. Cars are an inherently space-inefficient transport mechanism. Replacing cars with bikes improves street throughput several fold, removing that traffic. Removing cars mean that the same physical street can serve the transportation needs of more people, and let them travel more quickly.

We have to start to realize that the failures of car infrastructure result in less jobs, less leisure time, less living.

> Cars are an inherently space-inefficient transport

It is time efficient and convenient though.

> We have to start to realize that the failures of car infrastructure result in less jobs, less leisure time, less living.

How come? Having a car, I can reach tons of places in ~40km radius, without planning ahead too much, in any season. I would have to chop significant portion of my life if I were not able to drive anymore.

That only works for the select few, not for the many. In dense cities it falls apart.

Doing groceries for a family is an ordeal in a city with only public transport. Bicycles are useless for family groceries no matter having baskets and racks and there are no baskets and racks on city owned bikes. Cities with cold winters are even worse. Also terrible going to work in rainy weather or high winds. Bus routes go by their time and not yours and can add hours to your work week plus you have to be early in case they are and stand out in the elements while waiting.

But.. but... that youtuber told us that bicycles are awesome in any weather, for any purpose. See, there's a town in Finland where kids ride bicycles to school even in winter! /s

There are only certain medium size densities for which cars work. They are only convenient and time-efficient for a very small range of traffic, and only at very low density of interesting places to go. Look at how much space is devoted to parking on a satellite view of any sort of suburban shopping center, and you'll see why cars only work for low density of interesting places to go.

You seem to enjoy the number of places that you can reach in a car. But if the destinations are man-made places of interest, such as businesses, friends, shops, services, and social meeting places then cars' space inefficiency limit how many of those you can visit. Because each has to spend a massive amount of space on parking. And transport has a failure mode of creating traffic jams whenever demand for a certain route tips over a critics point, causing a phase change from free flowing traffic to a traffic jam, that can only be cleared by long periods of far lower number of cars.

With trains and bikes and walkable cities, you can achieve far far higher densities of interesting destinations, with a <40minute travel time. There is really no comparison.

> With trains and bikes and walkable cities, you can achieve far far higher densities of interesting destinations, with a <40minute travel time. There is really no comparison.

If your interests and hobbies are limited to bars, restaurants and your yoga studio then yes. I lived in a dense and walkable city, with (most likely) the best public transit in the world, and I felt like I'm trapped in slums.

YMMV, but for me a car is freedom.

Though I do like bars and restaurants, most of my interests are far more obscure, and can only be supported by large numbers of people that congregate in dense areas. For example, the types of science I do requires both high densities of people and attracting this strange subset of people to a few geographic centers.

High density does mean more bars, restaurants, and yoga but it also the prerequisite for highly specialized professions like tailors, rare book collectors, rare tea, etc. etc. etc. Bars and restaurants are the tip of the iceberg, but the rest of the iceberg is a long tail. Just as the internet allows people with rare interests to find each other and talk, high density allows these rare interests to meet in real life and develop face to face relationships.

In the video he specificly says that that road was reduced from 6 lanes to one to make room for bikes.

I’m curious why you would think people in the first picture are going to/from work but not in the second.

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