Paris’ $160M Plan to Boost Cycling

I guess one needs to match effectiveness of incentives with the local culture.

Personnally I ride a motorcycle; it was stolen last year and so I used bikes for about a month. Here are my observations, that I think are difficult to fix with money alone:

- pedaling makes you hot and sweaty; you arrive at the office being a mess

- when it rains you get super wet, much more than on a motorbike, because you have less protection and you don't carry special rain trousers with you at all times (whereas they're permanently stored on my motorbike)

- also, when it rains, if you cover yourself up to avoid the rain, you get even hotter and sweatier

- Paris isn't flat! (contrary to Amsterdam...) and some hills are very steep

- some distances are irrealistic for bikes: I have two clients who are 15km apart and (to me) 15km on a bike is a fairly long ride

All in all it seems bikes are mostly for tourists (who don't have to show up in an office at the end of their ride), during the summer (well, the part of the summer when it's not too hot) and for relatively short distances.

But in the absence of bikes, tourists don't take a car, they mostly use public transports (or maybe an occasional cab), so I very much doubt more bikes mean less car traffic.

There is another program in Paris that seems much more promising: Autolib, cheap electric cars that you can rent for a very short amout of time. Doubling that with electric scooters would be really great, IMHO.

- when it rains you get super wet, much more than on a motorbike, because you have less protection and you don't carry special rain trousers with you at all times (whereas they're permanently stored on my motorbike)

- also, when it rains, if you cover yourself up to avoid the rain, you get even hotter and sweatier

I liked your point about people cheering for the cars, but those three are a bit disingenuous. I come from a country where "everyone" bikes "all the time". Perhaps we smell (I jest only slightly). But in the face of at least two countries where people cycle a lot, including for their commute, those three things somehow don't add up.

The distances: yes. The hills: yes, good point. It's not suitable for every journey. But sweat? Come on. And not just once, but three times.

It weakens the rest of your post, which is a shame because I think it's a good one.

P.S.: I'm not going to individually address the points to avoid turning this into some cycling pissing contest. Suffice to say: people cycle. It's real. Nothing inherently wrong with it. Correction: yes, inherent problems, but clearly nothing insurmountable.

EDIT: Can't reply to the guy below, just want to say you make a great point about showers! Showers at work are not just good for biking; also for running. And just for showering :P I'd love showers at my office.

Of course this could have nothing do to with Germany phasing out its nuclear power plants and having to reopen coal power plants instead.

They massively increased the share of solar and wind in their energy production, but still need more traditional methods of power generation to cover when those 2 are not providing energy, hence more coal [1].

And coal is incredibly polluting. See [2] for example for CO2 emissions :

> In July 2014, a group of NGOs published a study on the EU’s 30 worst CO2-emitting thermal power plants. German power stations featured six times among the 10 dirtiest.

CO2 is not the problem for city pollution of course, it's the rest of the small particulate matter that is.

[1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy...

[2] http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/24/coal-casts-cloud-over-g...

And I don't see many people on bikes wearing suits; whereas in the subway there are many people with suits (i.e., "suits" aren't allergic to public transport).

A thing about Paris that I find is less true with other big cities is we're always in a hurry, and always late, because we always think we'll be able to make it. On a motorbike, this results in fines (and sometimes, accidents); on a bike, the ordinary outcome is arriving out of breath and, yes, sweaty (and late).