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Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I no longer accept published reports at face value, unless I check who the authors are, and who funds them. No, you use this as a cop out to deny results. In this case you have done this check and you have decided you do not want to believe the outcome so you wave around a vague charge of bias in a lame attempt to discredit it. Please show me one single scientific report or conclusion you’ve accepted that…

I am under no such obligation.

Your refusal to give any example of any work that meets your threshold only serves to underscore my point.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and what's the service life for that windmill or solar panel? What's the service life of the distribution system? And what was the cost to build out and constantly repair the refinery? The problem you have with your talking points is that solar and wind both have decades of service in them whereas fossil fuels are single use product. Further, once the infrastructure is created large portions of it can be reused w…

Oh yes, the refinery. Fortunately some of that oil and gasoline can be used in various stages for renewables.

For sure, it's a matter of degree.

I'm not an absolutist about crude oil. It'll likely have a place in society for a long time.

With that said, it's a matter of degree and where it should be deployed.

If, for example, burning 1 gallon of gas sets up a power generation which produces the equivalent of 20 gallons of gas without emissions, that's a worthy trade off.

As it turns out, that's roughly the energy trade-off for new solar/wind installations assuming a pure fossil fuel grid.

What you are saying isn't a gotcha. The entire cycle of CO2 released for fossil fuel use is not comparable to the CO2 released installing renewables. That some is released is meaningless.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#553
post #549

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The lower battery trim is not available in all markets, and only does 300km on a charge which is below average. As such the minimum weight will have to be the 1658 kg value. The BYD is taller to offset the battery, making the size misleading. However, the golf is not particularly a particularly good or space efficient car - others will do better at similar or lower weight. 250kg seems like a fair minimum weight incre…

Higher trim Dolphin has 150kW motor and weights 1658 kg. VW Golf with 150 kW (204 PS) engine weights 1492 kg empty. I see only 10% difference.

Same tier EVs are always more powerful than gasoline cars as they are generally just battery limited, not motor limited.

EVs are just a better tech in that regard, and buyers are not buying a Dolphin or golf based on torque or max HP. They're compacts in the same space. Someone looking at a dolphin would more likely be looking at the lighter eco motors.

This is true in other tiers too, e.g. a performance tier gasoline car might be 250-350 HP, while the same tier EV might start at 450-550hp just because they can.

The difference within a tier, simply based on the fact you're replacing at best a lightweight 100kg engine with 400-500kg worth of battery, can't be as small as you suggest.

With larger EVs, the battery weight is much greater, increasing the impact. Rocket equation and all.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, however there is little urban planning for whole metro Paris biggest infrastructure project for the past 20 years is called "Grand Paris" and revolve entirely around the whole metro. Actually there is literally no urban planning not involving the whole metro. And yes, lowering the speed limit involved multiple consultations with the prefect and the region because it impacts the whole metro. Considering Paris w…

Le Grand Paris...mostly doesn't involve Paris, as it's a new metro loop around it. Besides, what your say about the speed limit is false, the mayor didn't wait for the State's answer and decided unilaterally. The State and the region didn't agree with her: https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/09/09/anne-hid... https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/la-region-ile-de-france-ref... You can consider as much as you wan…

Le Grand Paris is the loop and the prolongation of all the inner lines deserving it. It very much involves Paris as its name implies.

> Besides, what your say about the speed limit is false, the mayor didn't wait for the State's answer and decided unilaterally. The State and the region didn't agree with her: https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/09/09/anne-hid...

The article you quote says the opposite of what you pretend. I invite you to read the paragraph "Une décision sous le contrôle de l’Etat, rappelle le ministère". It explains in details than the mayor could do nothing without the state agreeing to it.

> You can consider as much as you want, it is not unified.

It is unified. The city and its suburb are one economic unit. Where do you think all the service workers live? You have to be an extremely narrow minded inner city dweller to fail to see this.

> creating a system where Parisians can't own one, but have to bear their neighbor's who use them to get into the city.

I kindly invite you to check the average salary of Paris inhabitants vs the one in the suburbs then take a minute to think about what you just wrote.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses are perfectly accessible in Paris. They are crowded but acceptably so for a city of 10 millions. It’s not fair to expect the collectivity to accept the externalities of cars so rich people can avoid some slight discomfort.

Paris is not a city of 10 millions, it has only two million habitants. And cars are not reserved to rich people, why would they be? I grew up in Paris, my parents weren't rich, we were living in public housing and we had a car. Families are not second-tier citizens, and currently the public transports are not suited for them. On top of the other problems, such as the pleasure of having to deal with crackheads and var…

> Families are not second-tier citizens, and currently the public transports are not suited for them.

My family and the dozens I see every day in the Paris public transports beg to differ.

I suggest you might be a bit prejudiced (well more than a bit to be fair).

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would also expect that EVs wouldn't emit that many particles from brakes since the brakes typically wear much more slowly than with ICE cars.

But they are heavier. Not saying it offsets the effect but it's just not straight forward to assume either way.

It is in fact straightforward to assume EVs create way, way less brake dust, because of how much less often they need brake replacements than ICE vehicles with the exact same brakes.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway" No evidence whatsoever for that motivation. You could take the bus to the beach.

You are quoting yourself not the article or me?

No evidence besides the direct testimony of a person that worked on the project given to one of the best biographers in a piece of work that won a Pulitzer Prize. Also, the physical evidence of the bridges. Circumstantially, the man was openly racist, and openly used design to segregate.

The assertion isn’t that you couldn’t take a bus to the beach. The assertion is that you couldn’t take a bus from the inner city neighborhoods to Jones Beach, which was true.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one example. He required bridges be built too low for buses to pass, limiting access to parks and beaches to those who owned cars… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...

>ust one example. He required bridges be built too low for buses to pass, limiting access to parks and beaches to those who owned cars… > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo... If you're gonna claim something don't cite an article that's all about debunking that thing.

Read the article. It doesn’t debunk that assertion. It more or less confirms it.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#559
post #466

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Genuinely curious, do you have a good article about Bogota? Because your entire demeanor is acting like you have some "gotcha", without advocating for anything concrete. For example, from my brief perusal of Google Maps, it looks like they have some sort of growth boundary, because it goes from dense city to farms in a sharp line. For historical reasons, America is not organized that way. (And Chicago is fucked-up, s…

Bogota is interesting for their bus rapid transit (dedicated bus lanes), which as far as I know was built out for a fraction of the cost of a metro system. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/07/headway/bogot...

Yep, San Francisco's BRT line has been a huge success (despite being typically way late and over-budget). And actually SF has had 'proto-BRT' for a long time, but IMO they still need more subways.

Bodega does have a growth boundary, per google. (IMO the lack of that is the 'root of all evil' of USA development patterns.)

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#560
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, seems like people had me pegged as some Suburb Guy, when that couldn't be further from the truth. (I have mostly walked the talk, which is more than I can say of some of the former Bike Guys I have known.) Anyway, I completely agree with much of this, just a couple nits: > Every study shows that the poor are hurt the most because of car centric development. Yes, the poor always lose out versus Hypothetica…

> It's funny, seems like people had me pegged as some Suburb Guy, when that couldn't be further from the truth. I didn't, I read your comment. I think you are just haven't done the necessary level of research or you just have a doomer outlook. > Yes, the poor always lose out versus Hypothetical Utopia. But they are not comparing to Utopia, but rather the comparable situation where changes have been made. Or to the sa…

Not getting into some back-n-forth when I agree with much of this, and doing what I can locally.

> Again, literally nobody is arguing that! You have constructed a complete straw man of urbanist.

I actually made my post to head the scarecrows off at the pass. Otherwise these HN threads tend to just turn into reddit fuckcars.

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