The issue is that they have mainly increased the friction of using cars in the city (reducing lanes, restricting parking, converting avenues to one-way) all the while the public transit enhancements are running late, and whatever lines were already there saw a drop in service quality.
So increasing density would require a major improvement in public transit. Note, however, that the city of Paris proper already has one of the highest densities in the world.
Hmm...aren't you forgetting something?
Last I checked, Paris had a veritable bicycling revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Paris
Le Plan vélo de Paris (2015-2020) doubled bicycle lanes to 1000km and increased ridership (apparently already high?) by 50% or more.
The current plan is to add another 180km and make Paris 100% cyclable.
But what that doesn't mention: the bike sharing schemes are hit-and-miss. I usually commute each way a good hour before rush-hour traffic, so I have a good probability of finding a usable bike. But during rush hour? Fat chance.
Oh, you're going to point out that there's a scheme helping you purchase your own bike? Indeed. What are you going to do with it, though? At home, you may be able to find a spot to park in your flat (it's not my case). You wanna leave it outside? Sure, go ahead, if you don't care about finding it in one piece in the morning. Ditto for the other end of your commute.
There's also the fact that bike sharing schemes only work in Paris proper and adjacent towns. If you want to commute in from further away [0], you better be ready to ride in traffic and have your own bike, assuming you don't live that far. If you're lucky enough to live in one of the places served by the new metro, it's still not ready (but should be real soon now - fingers crossed).
So sure, having more dedicated bike lanes (and some of the new ones are actually physically separate from car lanes) is great. Although sometimes the layout is... puzzling? Bike lanes switching from the left to the right side of the roads, narrow two-way lanes (Bd Sébastopol), etc.
But I wouldn't exactly call it a "revolution" in practice. My commute goes from the east to the northwest of the city, around 7 km. Of these, only around 1 km is a bike lane separate from the traffic. And it's ridiculously narrow. Bonus points for it being painted with a slippery paint for some reason (look up Boulevard Magenta). The rest is half on bike lanes shared with a bus, the other half on regular roads with no bike lane at all.
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[0] Don't forget that Paris proper is home to ~2M people, while the Paris Region has ~12M.
Edit: I'm actually saying this as someone who enjoys and actually does bike. When living in the city proper, I think there are very few routes for which the bike isn't the quickest method of transportation. For my commute, which is pretty much a best-case scenario (modern metro with few to no issues, goes in a fairly straight line, don't have to change lines, stations close to both home and the office) the bike is much faster: 20 instead of 30 minutes.
Wouldn't we all love to have such a big flat.
I was talking to a friend living in London, and it would indeed seem that flats tend to be bigger over there. We do have many 100+ m2 flats, don't get me wrong, it's just that most locals can't afford those and live in shoeboxes instead.
There's also the fact that the layout doesn't always lend itself to storing a bike, most flats being rather old. Even though I would technically have the surface area to store a bike, it'd have to be in an awkward place to avoid blocking the passages.
Some newer apartment buildings do have areas for storing bikes more or less securely. But I doubt that's the case for most people.
Instead, what I'm hopeful for, is that the local bike-sharing scheme will improve. And indeed, I've read a few weeks ago that they were rolling out some improved model, which they expect to be more robust.
I've even read an article in Le Parisien (local-ish paper) about how some of those bike storage units were actually removed for some reason.
People also generally don't arrive sweaty when biking (at least not more than those taking public transportation in the summer).
To avoid being sweaty: go slower to not over-exert yourself, wear less clothing (you might be a bit cold when starting your commute, but that's not a big deal), and if it's still not enough (not fit enough, hills, etc...), an electric-assisted bike might be the solution.
Riding worked for a particular phase of my life, now it doesn't, since I have a kid to take care of and the bike theft problem has gotten out of control in my locale.
Over a third of Dutch people cycle as their most frequent mode of transport. Over a quarter of all trips are on a bike. 49% of primary school students and 75% of secondary school students cycle to school.
Cycling has been a national priority for the Dutch, like the automobile has a been a priority for much of the rest of the developed world.
With e-bikes, fitness and terrain are less relevant than ever. Unsafe(car dominated) bike routes are the number one obstacle to increased cycling.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands
A quick search reveals that the average winter temperature in the Netherlands is above freezing, while average summer temperatures hover around 20C. Sounds positively delightful for biking. That’s not the case for much of North America.
Where I come from, generally in the Great Lakes region, the average temperatures range from -1C to 30C during the year. Not great for year-round commuting by bike. Some people do it, sure, but it is truly a commitment.
They don't have 40°C in Summer like in Southern Europe, or -20°C like in the Alps.
My main gripe is actually availability of bikes in the bike-sharing scheme, since I can't bring up my own in the office, and since I work in a shady area, there's no way I'd leave it outside for the day. I also like the flexibility of not having to use my bike both ways. Think catching a movie or whatever after work and possibly getting a drink with friends. Although this is related to not wanting to leave the bike unattended for any period of time.
But nowadays, with electric bikes, unless you live on top of Montmartre hill (and even then), I think it's no longer an issue. I have a colleague who takes her two children to school on bike before riding into the office (she works in a different office, where they have an interior yard with bike racks). Her bike's got electric assistance and she doesn't seem to arrive out of breath or anything. She also doesn't seem exceptionally sporty.
You don’t need to be fit, just not entirely out of shape — or ride an ebike. You can easily do chores, get groceries, etc. on a bike. I take my kid to school in a cargo bike regularly. It’s faster than driving (at rush hour at least) because there’s no stoplights on the bike path. And rain gear is a thing.
It’s not for everyone but haters always claim it’s for no one. No, it’s just not for you, stop being a hater.
If you want to bike fast you can do it when not on the way to the office.
(I once biked in Dallas at 95F. There not getting sweaty might be a challenge...)
Hence, mostly flat.
They put in some heavy traffic restrictions in my local city of Oxford by closing off residential roads, forcing all traffic down "arterial" roads instead and putting parking restrictions all over the place. A year later, there are no fewer cars on the road or increased public transport usage; some local studies by the university confirmed that. People just spend more time stuck in traffic travelling longer distances.
It's like having a person with an injured leg and a missing one. Instead of giving the person a prosthesis to remove the load, they've just lopped the other off altogether, leaving them to crawl from place to place instead of hobble.
Erm aren't you forgetting something?
London just quadrupled its bicycle network. That seems like a massive improvement to me. When I lived there, biking was...let's be kind and say "less than ideal". Last time I visited I was amazed by the improvement, with protected two-way bike lanes right on the Thames and much more.
https://momentummag.com/london-just-quadrupled-its-bicycle-n...
Poster was presenting cars and public transport as the only two options, and complaining that one has been made worse without improving the other.
That completely misses the fact that there is in fact a third option that has been greatly improved, even if poster doesn’t like it.
Hence “Aren’t you forgetting something” rather than “you’re wrong”
A 15 minute walk is 2 minutes by car, five by bike.
Only when the distances are greater than short-walk distance. Cars take up (huge amounts of) space at their destination by parking. You can only push two destinations so close together before their parking lots merge.
For example, you might need to spend some time getting to/from the car or wending your way through a parking structure. You may need to drive a more circuitous route due to one-way streets—-and certainly can’t cut through a park or building. You don’t need fuel/charging or maintenance every trip but it amortizes out to a small delay. And there’s traffic!
Anecdotally, a 15 minute walk (~1 mile) is probably about the break-even point. My spouse and I both went that far yesterday, one in a car and one walking, and yet we both got home at almost exactly the same time.
So it’s a moot point when only one decision pathway can actually be budged by more then a few inches.
If you increase density, you should be avoiding the need to improve public transit, as more people will be closer to their destination than it's worth driving to.
For the same population increase, less density means people have to travel farther to get to their destination. More people travelling farther necessitates more public transit
Now suppose you compress this many people into an area of 25 square miles, where the roads are still half a mile apart. Now the distance along one of the edges is 5 miles and the same million people only have to travel 5 million miles. But now instead of having 400 miles of roads (10/0.5 * 10 on each axis), you have 100 miles of roads (5/0.5 * 5 * 2), so each road has twice as many cars, or each bus has to carry twice as many passengers or whatever.
This is why mass transit works in cities and not in the suburbs. In a city you have enough passengers to fill the bus or subway car, in the suburbs you don't. But if you increase the density without putting in any mass transit, you just get more traffic.
On the other hand, the people who say we can't increase density until we build mass transit are full of crap. You can add a bus route in a day, you just buy a bus and hire a driver. In urban areas subways are generally more efficient, and those take time to build, but you can run a bus until the subway is built. It's no excuse to hold up housing construction.
If your mailbox is attached to your house, you can lean out your front door to get your mail. If your mailbox is at the end of your 20 foot driveway, you take a few steps to get your mail. If you live on a farm, and your mailbox is down a several hundred yard driveway, you might hop in your side-by-side UTV. If your mail goes to a Post Office Box in town, you might hop in your truck and pick it up while running errands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
If things that had been a 10 minute drive become a 5 minute drive, now they're worth it when before they weren't. You go to the shop instead of waiting 2 days for Amazon. You go to the shop you like more instead of the one you like less even though the lesser one is closer, because now the difference isn't as big.
If you make the drive shorter but make parking harder,
and you make the walk/bike shorter but walking/biking pleasant,
people will take their cars less.
As traffic and travel times lessen, people do travel further and more, but only to a point.
More of this, it's fun - when you don't live there: trams running on insanely poorly designed, or maintained tracks, trams running on extremely squeally wheels (see design, maintenance), sirens (running on overtime and at full strength, see screaming people), preachers (see screaming people :-), protests (The birds aren't real!), drummers, motorcycles ("Harleys"), dirt bikes (kids). In San Francisco, cars are the well behaved and quiet group in there.
Sirens, people yelling, loud music, construction, etc.
Sirens: valid. But those suckers are usually attached to vehicles
People yelling: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when someone is yelling, it's some doofus in a car yelling at some other doofus in a car.
Loud music: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when there is loud music, it's some doofus playing loud music in their car.
Construction: valid
But the single most frequent / annoying loud sound: car horns. Constantly.
However, in Manhattan the city is still very loud with 0 cars. Meaning in the middle of the night in midtown, not a single car, the city itself hums with a constant noise that is not healthy.
Witnessed this during covid when I didn't see a car for hours on a typically busy midtown avenue, but the city is still very very loud compared to a suburban setting.
So, we get rid of all cars, then what? You still live in a noisy city. No thanks.
Credentials: 5 years in midtown, 15 years downtown Manhattan.
But I distinctly remember watching the odd car here and there and wondering where they were going.
And things were quieter! There was the background noise of machinery and buses and cars but it was a lot quieter than even holiday Sundays.
Credentials: 14 years in semi-rural Texas, 25 years in Manhattan
I agree the city was quieter during covid, and would be quieter without cars. It's ridiculous to debate otherwise.
But a major is vastly noisier without cars than any normal suburb with the rare car passing by a residential street.
NYC will always be loud, cars are not.
Sirens
Construction
Buses
Semintrucks / public machinery (trash, etc)
Subway
Belligerent people
Lunatics
Inconsiderate people on motorcycles
Cars
Buildings / HVAC
Cars are near the bottom of the list
Most of what I remember of European cities, too, when anywhere near the denser parts.
Part of "city noise" is dependent where you're living, and how new it is. Close, cramped, older building with people arguing above and below and beside you? Not fun. Newer building with excellent soundproofing? Nowhere near as bad.
But they're attached to emergency vehicles. The fire department is not going to wait for the bus when responding to a fire, so you can't actually get rid of this by installing mass transit, and then its prevalence is proportional to density.
> People yelling: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when someone is yelling, it's some doofus in a car yelling at some other doofus in a car.
> Loud music: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when there is loud music, it's some doofus playing loud music in their car.
If people are usually in cars then the people making noise will usually be in cars. But it's not as if they're going to stop having business disputes or lovers' quarrels or whatever it is this time just because they're on foot.
And whether loud music is a problem depends primarily on who your neighbors are. In a city you'll have a lot of them and you don't get to choose who they are.
> car horns
Ironically this doesn't happen in the suburbs because there are more roads and parking per car, and thereby fewer traffic disputes and no need to summon someone from a building immediately instead of parking and going inside. So you're now equally making the case for cities to have wider roads and more parking.