CityLab: Paris Aims to End Its Pollution Misery by Cutting Out Cars

[mstone]

I can pretty much guarantee that won’t make it past Congress

[Ben]

Lots of people like to compare DC to Paris because of the height limit – maybe we can aspire for this similarity as well.

[Greenbelt]

“toxic fug” would be a good name for a band

[Starduster]

@Ben 101661 wrote:

Lots of people like to compare DC to Paris because of the height limit – maybe we can aspire for this similarity as well.

DC is like Paris in multiple ways. The street layout was by Pierre L’Enfant, on the Parisian model. Broad, wide avenues, circles, *not* on a rectangular grid- all very Paris, non? You’ve noticed many modern cities are defined by the cathedral of skyscrapers at their center? Our DC and Paris are the exceptions. And the height limit of course- that way the Washington Monument and the Captitol dome are not overwhelmed by skyscrapers (thinking of Independence Square in Philly). And like Paris, despite our traffic and political bombast, this town is beautiful at night. I dedicated a Monuments at Night ride to that this past summer.

Our Congress… would call the Paris mayor’s proposal “Un-American”. Congress has been too thoroughly *purchased* by the status quo- big oil and coal.

[Orestes Munn]

I think it will come to some American cities in most of our lifetimes. Probably not to DC and not before most of we baby boomers make our wasteful, narcissistic, way to the nursing home (after we find a way to bill y’all for it, of course).

[lordofthemark]

@Starduster 101667 wrote:

DC is like Paris in multiple ways. The street layout was by Pierre L’Enfant, on the Parisian model. Broad, wide avenues, circles, *not* on a rectangular grid- all very Paris, non? You’ve noticed many modern cities are defined by the cathedral of skyscrapers at their center? Our DC and Paris are the exceptions. And the height limit of course- that way the Washington Monument and the Captitol dome are not overwhelmed by skyscrapers (thinking of Independence Square in Philly). And like Paris, despite our traffic and political bombast, this town is beautiful at night. I dedicated a Monuments at Night ride to that this past summer.

Our Congress… would call the Paris mayor’s proposal “Un-American”. Congress has been too thoroughly *purchased* by the status quo- big oil and coal.

Nope, it was modeled on Versailles. Paris in 1789 did not have broad avenues – it had narrow streets, a medieval legacy – the only US cities with that kind of street network I can think of are NY below Wall Street, and downtown Boston and the North End. Paris got its wide boulevards in the late 19th century, well after DC was laid out – when Baron Haussman rebuilt the city – one key benefit of wider avenues was to discourage the street barricades that had been a feature of various revolutions.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@lordofthemark 101671 wrote:

Nope, it was modeled on Versailles. Paris in 1789 did not have broad avenues – it had narrow streets, a medieval legacy – the only US cities with that kind of street network I can think of are NY below Wall Street, and downtown Boston and the North End. Paris got its wide boulevards in the late 19th century, well after DC was laid out – when Baron Haussman rebuilt the city – one key benefit of wider avenues was to discourage the street barricades that had been a feature of various revolutions.

Urban planning, Napoleon III style. Makes the Big Dig look like a pothole repair project.

[PotomacCyclist]

Fifteen years ago, who would have predicted that bike lanes, cycletracks and large bikeshare systems would become mainstream in U.S. cities large and small? Who would have thought that cycling rates (even though they are still a small percentage of total trips) would boom so rapidly over the past decade?

Even though bike advocacy can sometimes feel like an uphill climb (like Alpe d’Huez?), it is amazing to look back and see just how much has changed over the past decade in the U.S.

D.C. has seen a historic surge in population growth during this time. If that continues (maybe, maybe not), the powers that be may have to take more drastic measures to deal with the increase in transportation demands. Whether that ends up resembling the new Paris plan, or something else (major expansion of Metro, streetcars?, decentralizing employment so that rush hour traffic isn’t so heavily concentrated on routes heading toward downtown D.C.) — that’s impossible to predict now. But current transportation and land use planners can make a difference. So can cycling advocates.

When I read about new or recent bike trails, bridges and other infrastructure, I notice that in some cases, bike advocates had been working on the project for decades. So we get the benefits of people who toiled away in relative obscurity back in the 70s and 80s. Fortunately, the rate of change has speeded up in recent years, compared to the 70s and 80s, so maybe it won’t be decades before we see a Paris-style program. The moveDC plan has some bold ideas, for example. (However, many are skeptical about how much of that plan will ever be realized. At least those ideas are out there and in the mix for future transportation/land use planning.)

[dasgeh]

@PotomacCyclist 101689 wrote:

D.C. has seen a historic surge in population growth during this time. If that continues (maybe, maybe not), the powers that be may have to take more drastic measures to deal with the increase in transportation demands. Whether that ends up resembling the new Paris plan, or something else (major expansion of Metro, streetcars?, decentralizing employment so that rush hour traffic isn’t so heavily concentrated on routes heading toward downtown D.C.) — that’s impossible to predict now. But current transportation and land use planners can make a difference. So can cycling advocates.

National leaders in transportation consistently bring up population growth and how it is expected to be concentrated in and around cities – significantly increasing transportation demand in places where the infrastructure is already essentially maxed out. We won’t be able to pave our way out of this problem, and we have some hard thinking to do.

What strikes me as interesting is that bicycles seem to be the most “American” of the solutions (which seem to boil down to 1) transit; 2) (drastically) increase housing density – i.e. no more back yards; or 3) make most trips by bike. Bikes allow people to live less densely (ie. more spread out – because bikes allow travel farther than on foot) and still have a freedom of individual route choice that is hard to achieve with transit (because of its fixed route nature). It will be interesting to see where this goes.

[jrenaut]

@dasgeh 101694 wrote:

What strikes me as interesting is that bicycles seem to be the most “American” of the solutions (which seem to boil down to 1) transit; 2) (drastically) increase housing density – i.e. no more back yards; or 3) make most trips by bike. Bikes allow people to live less densely (ie. more spread out – because bikes allow travel farther than on foot) and still have a freedom of individual route choice that is hard to achieve with transit (because of its fixed route nature). It will be interesting to see where this goes.

That’s an interesting take. That means the big obstacle is going to be getting people past car dependency, and then they should logically flow right to cycling. I can already envision an ad campaign where the Man’s Man pulls up to his suburban home on a cargo bike with a cooler and a propane tank strapped to the back. He pulls a big package of steaks from the cooler and heads to the grill in his spacious backyard where his beautiful wife and children are enjoying themselves with friends. Then the voiceover. “Commuting to work was really taking its toll on me. I couldn’t give up my backyard, so I ditched my SUV.”

[dasgeh]

@jrenaut 101695 wrote:

That’s an interesting take. That means the big obstacle is going to be getting people past car dependency, and then they should logically flow right to cycling. I can already envision an ad campaign where the Man’s Man pulls up to his suburban home on a cargo bike with a cooler and a propane tank strapped to the back. He pulls a big package of steaks from the cooler and heads to the grill in his spacious backyard where his beautiful wife and children are enjoying themselves with friends. Then the voiceover. “Commuting to work was really taking its toll on me. I couldn’t give up my backyard, so I ditched my SUV.”

Yeah, I usually take the bakfiets if I’m running errands around Arlington. It’s slower than the other bikes we have, but I don’t have to worry about how much I may buy. Like last night, I thought I was stopping by the grocery store for cookie baking stuff, but ending up stocking up on wine (yay sale), and didn’t have to think twice about it.

[Riley Casey]

French wine and we have a complete circle.

Those parts of Paris that I’m familiar with are much less hilly than DC but then what would a tourist know. As encouraging as this report sounds I don’t think the US will see this sort of tectonic shift in policy until we are looking at the equivalent of $10 a gallon motor fuel. The US is simply too hardwired on a cultural level to private car ownership to turn that corner short of mass pollution related casualties or substantial disruption to the global petro fuel market. Color me pessimistic.

@dasgeh 101704 wrote:

… but ending up stocking up on wine (yay sale), and didn’t have to think twice about it.

[Author]

Posts