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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

#71

Post by wizzwizz4 »

youknownothing wrote: post #49

[flagged]

Electric cars tend to be heavier than ICE cars. This means their tyres wear out faster, which is plastic dust being thrown up in the air. (We're still not sure of the health impacts of microplastics, but we do know they accumulate in various organs, including the brain.) They also throw up road dust, and we know that rock dust is really bad to breathe in. Air pollution is still present. Compared to ICE cars fitted with catalytic converters, electric cars are probably better, but just because you can't smell their emissions doesn't mean they aren't still reducing the air quality.

They're also still tonnes of metal hurtling along the streets of a city shared by pedestrians, which is inherently dangerous. (Less so than a bus, but there are also more cars than buses: you'd have to check the statistics to see how that evens out.) As for actually damaging the road (producing road dust, potholes, etc, requiring a resurface that off-gases for weeks afterwards): cars damage the road more than bikes, though that's not significant compared to lorries, since the wear is something ludicrous like the fourth power of the weight-per-axle.

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

#73

Post by rapht »

This article omits so many negatives from the "cyclist's paradise" vision of Hidalgo's 2 terms that I don't know where to start. Families are the first casualties: the Paris metro is nowhere near accessible to strollers except if you are willing to go to the chiropractor after each week end, and using your car - hell, even parking your family car - is a no go as soon as there is some kind of hipster sports event or just as soon as you are after 10am on week end mornings. Local parks and generally streets are so dirty that you have to wash your children from head to toe as soon as they have set foot outside. And I'm not even talking about used seringes and broken glass in certain parts of the city. I'm actually so ashamed of my city at this point.

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

#76

Post by Macha »

youknownothing wrote: post #49

[flagged]

> the argument of "fewer cars make for cleaner air" is gradually losing weight.

Particles from tyre wear are a big contributor to local air pollution from cars - while they don't travel as far as CO2 to cause the larger scale problems, it's still going to be a local problem from electric cars, and since electric cars are generally heavier than equivalent petrol cars, that does mean they give off more tyre dust.

Large car thoroughfares also didn't do much for the soul of cities and neighbourhoods.

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

#77

Post by alguerythme »

youknownothing wrote: post #49

[flagged]

Your point about banning cars being ideological makes somewhat sense, but must be contrasted in regards to actual numbers.

- EV share in greater Paris area is only 3%, far from being high enough to impact air quality. Overall, the effect of removing cars on air quality has been noticed and celebrated.

- parisians are overwhelmingly in favor of banning cars. Unlike big american cities, car has never been a dominant transportation tool. Paris subway was already built when the first massed produced cars made their way in the capital. Cars have never been part of the soul of any neighbourhood people wanted to live in.

- paris has one of the highest population density in the world: 20k hab/km^2, ranking 31th in the workd. As consequence, parking space has always been crazy expensive, on top of high rents. Similarly for travel time between two locations: I can’t imagine a car being faster (except late at night, for night club and bars), and I try to avoid Uber/taxis intra-muros. Furthermore, a single noisy vehicle is estimated to be able to wake-up up to 150k (!!) people at night.

- a large part of vehicles are actually… taxis and uber for wealthy tourists than don’t want to bother with public transportation. In that regard, pushing away cars frees space for housing, parcs, shops, making the city easier to live in.

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

#78

Post by OtherShrezzing »

youknownothing wrote: post #49

[flagged]

The speed limit in London is at 20mph primarily due to safety, not emissions concerns. It takes approx 2x the distance to come to a complete stop from 30mph than it does from 20mph.

For the majority of journeys in London, you're sitting at a red light, or transitioning to the next red light. Not a lot of opportunity for sustained 30mph travel. Accelerating up to 30mph so that you can travel the 300 meters, and then stop for 3 minutes serves no benefit to you (because your journey is still predominantly waiting at traffic lights), but reduces safety for you & everyone around you.

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

#79

Post by Tade0 »

> “She is constantly criticized, but still reelected: I’ve never understood it,” says Lionel Pradal, a bistro owner on the bustling Rue des Martyrs. “Parisians never go out and vote, and then after they complain. This is the problem with French people, it’s always the same.”

This is somewhat of a public secret, but few people ever stay in Paris for longer than say 10 years and thus aren't that attached to the city. It's noticeable in how few people voted in Hidalgo's referendums.

The city has been losing citizens in favour of its suburbs for close to two decades now (if not much longer really) and this is a trend which shows no clear signs of reversing.

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

#80

Post by jfengel »

frnx wrote: post #9
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…

The new large cycling strips that appeared in the last 5-6 years are so good. At commute time there are frequently jammed with /cyclists/, but let's face it it's miles better than being stuck in a car. I shudder to think about the alternative where each cyclist was instead alone in a small car, this wouldn't even fit on the roads.

On a nice day it's fantastic to be out, but Paris can be cold and rainy. They really need to have a plan for those days, too.

Paris Metro is pretty nice, and reaches most of the car free area. But I'm not sure if it can handle all of the cyclists if they're all trying to avoid a déluge.

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