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Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

cnn.com

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Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#31

Post by vel0city »

lefrenchy wrote: post #4
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #2

This article has such a weird framing. It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists. But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. The Parisian residents living there throughout the year do. Maybe because it’s CNN, an American outlet, they’re focused on the “tourist”, but these benefits have mostly accrued to Parisians. Also, the 4% increase in traffi…

[flagged]

You have a fixed amount of space to put stuff. If the stuff gets larger, can you put more or less stuff in that space?

So now we have at least the same number of people trying to put their stuff in that fixed size space, but their stuff got bigger, does that make it easier or harder for them to put their stuff in that space? Will they have to compete more or less for that space?

Seems like a pretty obvious one to me.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#32

Post by Fricken »

delichon wrote: post #13

In an American city I would bet on the mobility impaired people to win the cage match against the fewer cars people. They are tougher than they look. Edit: The responses reasonably talk about the officially mobility impaired people. I was thinking more about the unofficially mobility impaired people by obesity, like me. French obesity rates are ~16% compared to ~42% in the US. That contributes to a fierce US constitu…

My buddy with no arms or legs would beg to differ. He can't afford taxis because he can't work a real job. His friends/family can't drive him around because you need a custom vehicle for his chair. But he can use bike lanes and sidewalks independently without too muuch trouble.

Car-dependent sprawl creates mobility impaired people where there were previously none. Many people are too old, too young, too intoxicated, too vision impaired or too poor to drive. Lack of viable transportation options is the greatest barrier to upward economic mobility for Americans today.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#33

Post by dmix »

wiether wrote: post #27
delichon wrote: post #13

In an American city I would bet on the mobility impaired people to win the cage match against the fewer cars people. They are tougher than they look. Edit: The responses reasonably talk about the officially mobility impaired people. I was thinking more about the unofficially mobility impaired people by obesity, like me. French obesity rates are ~16% compared to ~42% in the US. That contributes to a fierce US constitu…

A city with less cars is a net positive for mobility impaired people. It frees space for people (wider sidewalks...), reduce the risks of navigating the streets, and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots. Less cars also means less mobility impaired people. Cars create them through crashes and a lifetime of sedentariness. Finally, it should be noted…

> and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots.

The article mentions there's now constant traffic jams for city buses in Paris. It seems best for people who can cycle, walk, or people who already live in the city and don't need to travel much.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#35

Post by dismalaf »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #2

This article has such a weird framing. It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists. But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. The Parisian residents living there throughout the year do. Maybe because it’s CNN, an American outlet, they’re focused on the “tourist”, but these benefits have mostly accrued to Parisians. Also, the 4% increase in traffi…

> Paris has not escaped the wrath of the SUV, and a large part of the congestion cities across the world are seeing is solely down to cars becoming bigger.

Europeans don't drive Suburbans. They drive crossovers that are, if anything, shorter than the equivalent sedan or wagon.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#36

Post by LaGrange »

dmix wrote: post #33
wiether wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A city with less cars is a net positive for mobility impaired people. It frees space for people (wider sidewalks...), reduce the risks of navigating the streets, and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots. Less cars also means less mobility impaired people. Cars create them through crashes and a lifetime of sedentariness. Finally, it should be noted…

> and for the ones that have to use a car, there's less traffic and less people stealing dedicated parking spots. The article mentions there's now constant traffic jams for city buses in Paris. It seems best for people who can cycle, walk, or people who already live in the city and don't need to travel much.

That's just a weird way of saying that the reforms didn't go far enough.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#37

Post by vovavili »

goldenarm wrote: post #20

I moved from LA to Paris, my mental and physical health improved dramatically. I don't even take the subway, walking and biking are enough where I live. Hopefully we can reach the comfort of dutch cities within a decade.

I was more comfortable living in Paris than living in a Dutch city because I was able to live in a banlieue. Biking here is more developed, and that's a plus. But having my job, my living space, my friends and my favorite weekend activities spread across Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague does take a bit of a toll. I wish The Netherlands did have a much less restrictive housing policy.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#38

Post by jstummbillig »

iamkonstantin wrote: post #14
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #2

This article has such a weird framing. It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists. But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air. The Parisian residents living there throughout the year do. Maybe because it’s CNN, an American outlet, they’re focused on the “tourist”, but these benefits have mostly accrued to Parisians. Also, the 4% increase in traffi…

I think it’s no easy task to reform a city away from being car-centric. In my home town of Ghent (in Belgium), we’ve had several iterations of a traffic plan that gradually reduces the number of parking spaces, rises taxes and car related costs, makes streets one way or deprioritises cars (e.g. a car doesn’t have priority over a bike anymore) etc. It’s not easy but the city today is a lot more liveable than it was wh…

Honest question: What is the hard part? If you took all of that stuff and did it as quickly as you could somewhere else, what's would be the biggest issue? People + resistance to change of any kind?

The outcome seems so obviously good. I have never heard of anyone complaining about a city becoming less car centric, but maybe somehow it's an under-represented story?

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#39

Post by goda90 »

whatever1 wrote: post #24

Of course you can reduce highways and infrastructure and reduce traffic. But you also choked access to the city. And no public transportation does not fix the problem. It helps a bit, but at the end of the day biggest part of far commuters are gradually cut off. If decentralization is the target, then just state it.

Many cities in the world have many thousands of far commuters arriving by train every day. And many of those people even live in single family homes and own cars.

Re: Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, reduced the number of cars

#40

Post by Palomides »

consumer451 wrote: post #19

Complete tangent, but I met my equally nerdy brother in Paris last month. It was my first time, and his fourth. We stayed South of the Republique metro station. After the literal 30th indie Manga [0] shop that we walked by, I asked him: "how are all these shops financially viable?" He said: "look inside." Holy crap, they all had customers inside! I had no idea that Japanese culture has such a strong presence in the h…

france has a really strong tradition of comics, it's not just manga
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