Yeah, the famous pathological reluctance to change. In Toronto, one good start would be to put streetcars in exclusive right-of-way, separated from the cars and allocate space for cyclists. Paris removed car lanes by the dozen, they've put circular tram lines in dedicated right-of-way on the boulevards circling the core city, giving trams full stoplight priority, adding large cycling paths and reducing car lanes to a single file on these boulevards. It was a bit painful for some time but now it's accepted and works perfectly. People that still want to drive around the core city for distances longer than a few hundreds of meters now have to take the loop road parallel to those boulevards which are now only used by cars for local journeys. Bikes, busses, taxis and Uber's now go faster and easier on the surface, metros and RER are still super efficient underground, while the private cars go slower. That's the perfect incentive to switch to public transportation and soft mobility. Toronto can take example on, and pick measures from Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam or Copenhagen and apply them slightly differently to fit their urban fabric. (Without altering them too much of course). They're too shy, making changes without changing anything doesn't work! They have to be bold and brave, try something strong and why not *controversial* . Like maybe the super-block system on parts of Toronto's downtown,l ; Barcelona and Paris each implemented this slightly differently. A Toronto version of the super-blocks with a bit of exclusive right-of-way for streetcars would be a good start. And they must stand by it for years, to let the most reluctant to change the time to accept, adapt and get used to them. And after that, maybe they can stop putting trams in tunnels (I'm looking at you Finch West LRT) and go straight to subways for such kind of structuring lines. And let's be crazy, maybe turn into a real transit heaven in North America (the bar is set quite low anyway).
I'm a car guy, I have an r33 skyline and a Toyota MR-2 as my weekend warriors. That being said, I think cars are horrifically inefficient and as someone who lives close to Amsterdam, I've seen a drastic change in traffic and congestion from the early 90's to now, and I've seen the major improvements that happened in the city by motivating people more to take alternative modes of transport. They improved the infrastructure drastically and as a result, more and more people take either public transport or use an E-bike to get around. It's much more pleasant to walk around in the city, and I have no problem parking my own car at the edge of the city and take a 10 minute metro drive to the center to contribute to a cleaner, safer and more quiet environment in the city center. I'm 100% for limiting the use of cars in big cities, BUT this should obviously go hand in hand with offering good alternatives like more buses, light rail, bike lanes, etcetera.
Me too, I only drive out of into my Dutch city, not within unless it's a special occasion. I don't drive much but want to own one and be able to drive. For vacation for example, we now have these Amsterdammers that believe they are saving the climate when they take the train to Schiphol, while disconnecting the city from the surrounding country-side and connecting it to New York and Barcelona while that's far worse for climate change. By now the Netherlands is in a state that a bit of moderation with limiting car use is due and the hypocrisy of the anti car air travelling mob should be exposed.
Some people say that it is more expensive to travel with a family using public transportation instead of using a car but tell yourself this: is it not better to have less cars on the road, less accidents, pollution, traffic ? Have more people exercise, bike, walk safely around ? Nothing is perfect but I would wager having less cars is defnitely a good thing. Most cars anyways are only transporting one person nodaways, except for holidays. Those who still need to use a car, will. But those who can use other means will switch and that is the entire goal of the transition.
Paris is extremely encouraging. Maybe not from a perspective of quality (yet) in terms of the cycling experience, but in terms of the decisiveness and expedience with which the transformation has been pushed over there and also the speed with which people have changed their habbits. That drop in the rate of car ownership is actually crazy. The only other city that has pushed for the same degree of transformation in the same (short) amount of time that i can think of is Seville in Spain, which is of course a much smaller city. But Paris really is proof that given the political will and urgency, not a single european city has a valid excuse not to transform itself into a bike friendly city within a decade or two.
@@renaud_bt you clearly just bought the propaganda without actually checking the policies didn't you ..... No cars No meat No travel Stay in your 15 min city Eat bugs Eat Synthetic plant material Exist in meta This is the road you want to go down and are trying to convince us non propaganda victims to go with you ...... No - you mug ...... We won't go ... Why on earth would we ??? You gullible mug
@@truthandfreedom8145 actually you would have more freedom with the bicycle vs the car. The autonomous cars will truly strip away your freedom. One insult at a political party or some agenda and the same car will drive you to the jail while playing your favorite song.
Your map of Rue de Rivoli at the beginning is incorrect… but otherwise, great video! I remember, when I was working in Pairs during the covid years, i could see street changes everyday. I recommend you go back and bike again. A LOT has changed in 2 years since you last visited. Another reason why is because paris is using the upcoming Olympics to fast-track changes in the city.
@@omarmansour1108 I agree of course... if we accept the premise that a bike highway such as present-day Rue de Rivoly doesn't qualify as a 'significant road'. Which says a lot about the relationship we have to private cars as the embodiment of road mobility. Besides the map exists on screen with a sign reading "1900 Paris", when rue de Rivoli was clearly a major avenue, for whichever vehicule would use it at the time.
I have been cycling a lot in Paris for over 20 years and I totally agree with your conclusion: - Paris is far from being a "cylcing utopia"; there are still a lot of problems (too many to be mentioned here) and many other cities (including important cities in France such as Nantes) have much better cycling infrastructure - But there have been incredibly massive changes during the last 20 years (since the arrival of Velib', one of the first bike-sharing systems in the world and the biggest to this day if I'm not mistaken). The situation has improved a lot. It took a lot of political courage to Delanoe and Hidalgo because they did it in face of fierce opposition from the right (and many are still very critical about it) and made traffic (promoting biking and public transport against personal cars) the centerpiece of their policy, but the fact that they have been consistently reelected proves that there is support for their policy. Great video anyway!!
@Mike A "Seeing the dramatic change in Paris gives me a small amount of hope for some US cities" Yes, cities in Europe are very dense so a 5 km bike ride is easy and allow you to cross Paris entirely. A conurbation like Los Angeles would call for much longer distances (50 km) but one like Manhattan could be a candidate for conversion.
@@anomanees Parisian here. With Paris "Intra-Muros", 5 km lead you almost anywhere. For the Ile de france (the full conurbation) you need 50 to 100 km.
@@johnjeanb The Paris urban area is more than 50km wide. Bikes are for the center, outside you got a network of trains. People even go live in Orleans or Chartres, 100km from Paris where they work. High speed train allows for that.
Cycling is particularly great for Paris because although it is densely populated, it isn’t that big in surface area. With a decent cycling infrastructure you can really go anywhere in Paris in a fairly short time !
totally agree with you, European cities are not as big as American so what is good for Europe is not good for America with its long ways to get somewhere.
@@ludmilaivanova1603No, the size of American cities is just a bad excuse to not change anything! And with electric assistance, distances on bicycles are a lot less problematic. The (much) lower density in North American cities reduces the problem of overcrowding that is becoming a real issue for cycling infrastructure in Europe, especially Paris, the mother of all hyper-dense cities. There's a lot of changes to be done in American cities to improve quality of life and urbanism. The size / urban sprawl is a lame excuse, it will only be slightly different, not impossible at all. Many in Paris and Europe had a ton of excuses for not doing anything and these excuses were smashed and proved wrong. The only thing stopping American cities from changing for the better are a terrible lack of will, a toxic addiction to the car and a pathological reluctance to change. N-A cities probably won't look like Paris, Amsterdam or Copenhagen, that's for sure, but if they're brave enough to try, they'll evolve and create an American city's way of implementing soft mobility evolution. They'll reform the stupid zoning laws, they'll densify a bit and they'll favor walkability and cyclability over car access.
@@ludmilaivanova1603 True, but by Paris being fairly « small » I was mostly comparing it to Berlin for example, which has a much larger surface. Even London. Paris is large if you include it’s greater area, then it becomes a 10M people city but actual Paris is quite small. US Cities as both enormous un size and bike lanes/transit barely exist 😅
@@EliasBac they push for bikes everywhere no matter how much people are going to use them. Harsh winter with much of snow and wind in Canada is not the best condition for bikes. Why there is a tendency to have only one solution for all-so silly.
@@ludmilaivanova1603 Who's talking of one solution for all? There are evidently many options to manage change. And given the experiences in the Netherlands and Copenhagen (which Paris has learned from, thanks guys), people do have quite a bit of knowledge as to what works and what doesn't. Finland has quite harsh winters, they bike far more than the US. They have solutions. And what harm is there in trying? Reversing a bike-related piece of infrastructure that doesn't perform as planned is *much cheaper* than reversing a car-related (or indeed bus-related, tram-related) infrastructure that is detrimental to the city.
Great video! This kind of work in promoting cycling should be studied by cities everywhere. The more infrastructure there is the more people will cycle.
People won't have a choice because you lot are takingus down the - you will own nothing and be happy rubbish with this bike nonsense..... You literally won't be able to drive and you'll be stuck in your city forever more ..... Sap
Actually experience in NL and other countries have shown that providing cycling infrastructure does not by itself increase cycling rates. It is only when cycling infrastructure is combined with measure to make cars travel less convenient for short journeys (traffic calming, closed roads, low traffic neighbourhoods, reduced parking etc) that cycling and walking really takes off. This was mentioned briefly in the video..
No it does not and trying to force it is why Bath is currently fighting to get their streets back from a council who forced their ideas on their city. I have no want or need to ride a bike and my rural area I live in has no need for it. You should look up Bath and Oxford protest against 15 minute cities…. It’s one thing if someone wants to but frameworking a city that almost forced people to is what’s happening… they can take 15 min cities and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Those are dramatic changes, almost half of the cars off the road and a big air quality improvement. Not to mention the quality of driving for the people who actually need to
@@truthandfreedom8145 There's things out there called trains and planes... Much more convenient for inter-city travel. Or someone can always rent a car if it fits their needs. Not everyone wants to own a car. People deserve to live in cities that aren't choked by non stop car traffic.
@@renaud_bt right and ?? No train lines to the wilderness I like to frequent ....... Also you think they are taking your car but you will be able to fly ?? 🤣🤣🤣👍🤡 You sad Stockholm syndrome chump 🤣
@@renaud_bt you clearly have zero idea of the policies they are bringing in with this bike rubbish do you ....... They will make the wild places protected zones and you won't be able to leave your 15min city ......... You are taking us all down a road to totalitarian carbon based fascism and all for no reason ... You gullible mug
it's not only about cycling. Hidalgo is giving priority lanes to buses, removing traffic completely in small streets where there are primary schools as well. I live in a quit area in PAris (that exists ^^) and a big street close by has been reduced to only one lanes for standard cars and the opposite strictly for buses and taxi. The result is a much improved peaceful environment. You can litterally hear the birds when walking on the side walks. Amazing
Not really, bus speed is been decreasing since she arrived, and not a lot of new bus lanes have been created (some even got closed). The only one that promoted the buses was Delanoe (he created most of the bus lanes)
I always am amazed when I see big cities or even countries giving huge importance to cycling. Unfortunately I live in Malta, where cycling has been given almost to 0 importance. Most of us, haven't even rode a bike once.
Which is sad, with the size of the island, it would be fairly possible to shift near entirely towards bikes for most commutes. I'm sure the country could have incredible bike travels :>
Malta is just like Nassau, capital city-island of the Bahama's, everybody drives a car. Hardly anyone cycles. Not Just Bikes made a video about it. ua-cam.com/video/kdz6FeQLuHQ/v-deo.html&ab_channel=NotJustBikes
As a parisian, I have to say that the cycling policy in Paris has one huge drawback, it was developped for itself, not taking in consideration all the surrounding urban environment and other transportation means,
Most bike lanes were built by transforming former bus lanes, and now all buses are merged into the general traffic and have disastrous schedules, delays etc. Meanwhile, no significant improvement has been done in the existing public transport since 20 years, the new lines (RER E, metro 15-16-17-18, tram extensions) are postponed again and again, there are less buses, metros and trams than before covid because of missing staff, no additional parkings lots have been built to let commuters leave their cars outside of the city etc etc. This leads to a situation of increased mess, since you do not have less cars, you do have less public transport, and you have some bike travel which will never replace any public transport. Not to mention that when bike lanes are often built directly on the pavement, there are many clashes and accidents with pedestrians (also because too many cyclists believe they are alone and have full priority over anyone else) Besides, regarding the drop in car ownership, keep in mind that the population of Paris has been decreasing over the last decades for many reasons (so cars number too). Many families have left Paris for suburbs, leaving the city intra-muros for students, rich elderly or tourists (what we call museum-city), population categories that often do not have cars.
Public transit is Pécresse’s area, Hidalgo changes what she can change. Cyclists do create conflicts but that’s mostly because of unsuitable bike infrastructure and a still lacking bike culture. This will only improve with time. Also Paris has the same population today as in 1990.
I live in the suburb area and I take my bike in transports to the entrance of Paris, then I ride my bike inside. Buses still have lanes, they are just shared with taxis or bikes. It feels better and better each day.
Oh t'abuses, oui c'est pas parfait les transports en commun et les aménagements cyclables mais y a quand même un gros effort au niveau des 2. Il y a bien moins de voitures qu'avant et c'est bien plus facile et rapide de se déplacer en vélo. En effet les fréquences des transports en commun ont baissé et il faut absolument qu'elles reaugmentent. Après sur l'aspect strictement transport en commun le grand Paris express est littéralement le plus grand projet de transport en commun en cours en ce moment dans le monde donc on va pas cracher dessus quand-même. Y a des retards comme dans tous les projets d'envergure malheureusement mais toutes les lignes sont en bonne voie pour ouvrir. Je trouve qu'au global qu'on a pas à se plaindre de ce qui se fait en terme de transport en IDF. Y a des problèmes "localisés" mais ça évolue dans le bon sens au global
there was also a long transport strike in Paris from December 2019 to ~ mid January 2020. Not being able to rely on the metro and bus network to go work while the car was still a bad choice really pushed the need for individual cycle and electric scooters. Then there was covid a those pop up bike lanes got even more popular the summer when people could use their new bikes after months of lock down.
I love what's happening in Paris. Cities are for people, not for cars. It might be awhile before it's convenient to make all trips by bike there, but every car taken off the city streets is a step in the right direction.
Cities are for people, not for bicycles. That is also true. In certain places in any given city, one will dominate even in shared spaces. Like is at peace with like, relatively speaking, simply because a bicycle is kind of delicate as transport. Both modes need to be separate. In car space, one less bicycle matters. The danger is that if both groups only see each other as opponents and not as human beings with legitimate needs, you may well have your free flowing car traffic or walkable city, but you will hate those who think differently. At that point, it's no different than a religious conflict. The values differ, but the exclusion and resentment are the same.
@@delftfietser There's a huge difference. Infrastructure for cars and car-oriented design of spaces squashes and displaces everything else. Cars eventually completely take over spaces; they are large, they need a lot of space used only for them, they are designed for limited passengers so there can end up being a ton of them, and they demand even more space, large swathes of it, for parking. Cars by their mere existence tend to end up being hostile to everything else, even ignoring the dangers introduced. Drivers see cyclists as individual nuisances because they end up being forced to share the same space. The environment that let cars dominate is itself a cause of that. But they also get annoyed at losing space to introduce biking infrastructure. Drivers want it both ways. And yet they also don't want the natural conclusion to removing cyclists, for those people to be in cars instead, because then there's more traffic. No, there is no reasonable solution; the "goal" of complaining drivers is for other humans to not exist around them in any way. Cyclists dislike cars because they can be _killed_ by them, and because car-oriented design overwhelms other options. It takes longer to commute to places you want to go because car-oriented city design (and suburbs) spreads everything outwards, and you still have to deal with interacting with cars even with cycling infrastructure in place. Cycling infra can be multi-use, doesn't have to take up much space to be useful, it doesn't take much space to park, and half the work of cycling infra is about making cyclists safer _from cars._ Going "if drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate cars it's the same thing" is, frankly, entirely wrong.
@dork Cars require their space for their function and speed, like bicycles also do for their function. Nothing in their existence makes their users hostile. You already know that cars and bikes exist together in the Netherlands. Do you believe that smartphones turn users into porn addicts and social media junkies? Good people who know how to use the phone and the bicycle and the car well exist and live decent lives towards themselves and the people around them. Are you advocating for the removal of these devices from their lives because of the toxic people or the activists who cannot control their own fear and hysteria? There is mutual hatred, fear, intolerance, and ugly ignorance on both sides. That has to be killed with truth and mutual understanding.
@dork People on bikes and in cars can coexist. Nearly all of the canal roads of Amsterdam have no painted lanes. They share those narrow roads, passing within three feet of contact if needed. The speed limit is 30km/h. And both need to watch for those on foot. There is dedicated space, neither "Mine!" nor "Yours!" nor one or the other forbidden from being there. There is just people trying to walk, bike, or drive down that street. Of course, there are other roads where one or the other has priority. Absolute equality is not always possible nor always desirable.
The thing that's different with other city, is they do it, they don't spend years to think about it. They do it. So the result is not perfect, sometime a bike line is not very practicle or safe but then a few months later they fix it. It's better to do things quickly and fix it after observation of users and problems than taking years to think about something without doing anything.
There's a French proverb "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien", literally "the best is enemy of the better". You mentioned quite an example of that in your comment. Overthinking things and saying we want the best plan before starting any change is the sure way to never do anything. These everlasting plans are also the best excuse for not changing anything that city councils / politicians have found to never have to actually do something impactful. In France everybody loves to hate Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo but she gets reelected and everyone is taking interest on Paris and its mobility revolution. So they must be doing something right even if they are constantly criticized. Change happened, real change: school streets have reduced traffic or even no traffic at all. New super-blocks are implemented, forcing cars to exit the super-block and drive around it to go anywhere... It's great!
When you build a bike infrastructure, it actually takes several years for people to change their habits. This is what happened in Montreal. A lot of criticism at first, buy now it would be hard to go back to no Bixi or bike lanes. The community takes a few (5-10) years to adapt, because those who can no longer park in the street move out to be replaced by those who don't need parking. New condos and apartments can be constructed in the downtown area, with fewer parking requirements.
I live in Paris, yes the rue de Rivoli or other major traffic arteries have been transformed for bicycles except that it is all the other small streets around which are congested with traffic. Driving around in Paris is still hell, parking impossible, public transport is hell, 9 million Ile-de-France residents are excluded from the country's capital and pollution has absolutely not decreased. Paris is certainly not an example for other cities in the world.
It makes my Dutch cycling heart happy to see better biking infrastructure is possible in other cities/countries too. It took us some decades to get where we are, but other cities can adopt it faster because they can see what works and the benefits it has.
Great thing Amsterdam is so connected to Paris with the Thalys. I love spending time in here, 7 hours of bus or 3 hours of train away only, and it's not for the plants or red color!
Paris still lacks a lot of public transportation. The bus company is struggling to recruit and keep bus driver because work conditions are not great and the media keeps bashing them when they go on strike.
Great video. I lived in Paris in the late 90's, we used to cycle around the city for a "Manif a vélo" ( Demonstration on bikes) on weekends, taunting car drivers, and honestly risking our necks. That was when they started building bike lines, that were fiercely opposed, and fiercely defended by pioneering bike users. Just one remark: the map at 10 s does not show Rue de Rivoli, ( it shows Friedland and Haussman Avenues) Rivoli is to the south, closer to the Seine.
Great video. As someone who has been visiting Paris several times a year since 2004, I have seen huge improvements and have been a regular Velib user for more years than I can now remember. There was a "hiccup" when they changed operators but with the subsequent expansion of the network and introduction of e-bikes it is an excellent way to get around Paris.
I’m in Paris right now and it’s a huge difference from 10 years ago. There is so little traffic. And most of it in the congested areas are work trucks, buses and delivery trucks. The boulevards have much shorter crossing distances. Tons of bike parking now. It’s just amazing and much more pleasant and quieter.
In addition, we can also talk about the numerous projects carried out by Île de France mobilités (the organisation responsible for transport in the Paris region), including the Grand Paris Express, the largest rail project in Europe, and many other projects designed to get Parisians on public transport. Paris is doing a lot for transport and the ecological transition.
Another great video! France is quite an interesting country and Paris an interesting city. I didn’t realise how good they were at moving transport/mobility in the right direction
With the Olympics, just like with COVID, it'll keep going in the right direction faster, it will open paths for experimentation (with redesigned areas, more pedestrian area etc). For instance, it's incredible to finally start the sanitation of the Seine which has very bad reputation (although it was 1000x dirtier 100 years ago) but will be clean enough to swim in for 2024 or 2025.
Hey, just wanted to say that what you're showing at 0:10 is the Boulevard Haussmann, not the Rue de Rivoli. As a Parisian, cycling is good as long as you have a dedicated bike lane. Otherwise, you have to cross traffic since many intersection haven't been redone, and cars are still here. Cars are still being the main danger that we somehow accept for some reason. I'll vote for her if she stops building ridiculous skyscrapers inside Paris and does more to eliminate cars entirely from our city. Cars do not belong here. Nice video overall !
Which skyscrapers? There's only a very limited number on the extreme outskirts of the core like the Triangle tower or the Duo tower, a meter further and they would be outside municipal city limits Other than that there are no skyscrapers being built nor planned in the center of Paris. And these outlying towers have the merits of reinforcing the pressure towards extending metro lines, like the Duo towers is a strong asset to push for line M10's extension Southeast to Vitry, they also bring much needed funds to further advance the switch from car mobility to pedestrian, cycling and transportation infrastructure. After that, the problem with cars is that the city hall can only do so much and the government often contradicts or blocks the mayor's plans, most of the time for political reasons. The right side candidates complain 24/7 about the "war on cars" and the government's possible candidate isn't much better in that matter (either spouting plans that completely bonkers or wanting to stop the reduction of car space). The "police prefecture" is the number one obstacle on anything reducing car space. They constantly try to block pedestrian and cycling infrastructure upgrades or conversions. They forced the Magenta bike lanes onto sidewalks instead of dedicated lanes, officially to "preserve trees" but the trees never were threatened on the mayor's plans. The list goes on and on. For cycling, walkability and public transportation, the current mayor and majority have shown quite a strong willingness and took a bold stance that is either less or completely absent among other candidates / groups. It's never gonna be enough, mostly due to the neverending list of obstacles laid by the government / prefecture and political opponents or special interests groups. But seeing what others are promising, either dishonestly or unrealistically, I really don't want to try them.
The only issue is that Paris is not only a 2-million-inhabitant city, there are 10 millions people orbiting around it, who need to go to work, leisure and travel. Those bike lanes are a great thing when you are living in Paris center. But for everyone living in the suburbs it's a nightmare now that parking spots are scarce and expensive, common transportation means are inefficient, expensive, and overcrowded with so many lines under refurbishment. Plus absolutely no thought is given to people working by night. There's still an incredible amount of things to do... And understanding what Paris is before forgetting so many people would be one major step forward.
The problem is mainly the hyper concentration of activities in central Paris. By decentralizing jobs, and encouraging large companies to settle even in the nearby suburbs, it would relieve the main traffic axes. This is the idea of the Grand Paris express. To be able to live in Versailles and work in Versailles or in neighboring towns.
@@Misterjingle yes definitely, but it is an issue that has been known for decades and the fix is years late (between Grand Paris or moving jobs from Paris to elsewhere) . Meanwhile, Paris (intramuros) is moving and not waiting for it. I grew up in Paris suburbs and I really love those bike lanes or even the new pedestrian free space on the riverside. It's amazing to spend time enjoying this beautiful city. But when looking at it with a critical eye, it really just moved away the latent issues with Paris and left them for suburbians to deal with. Overcentralization of everything is the main issue. That's actually one of the reasons why I don't want to go live back there.
@@Tornadospring You point out the other main problem. It is the lack of consultation and common projects between Paris and its suburbs. What could really shake things up is a merger of the municipalities of Paris and the inner suburbs, in order to bring the issues closer together and set up joint development projects. But we are entering here into a subject that is far too sensitive at the political level and at the local power level.
If there already is no parking for them in the center, then it is obvious that more car dependent policies won't work. People from outside the ceinture should be using Public transit to get into the center, especially if their destination is in the Center. If people are trying to go from one end of the city to another, then they should not be driving through the center in the first place. The city center is logically the most desirable and expensive in terms of meters squared. It is ridiculous then to have so much of the public space be devoted to parked cars, which them selves can take up more room than even Paris apartments (1 parking space is in general 10sqm). Cars simply do not belong into city centers, they are most useful in the rural landscape where there is no alternate transit.
@@serebii666 There used to be many more parking spots that have been replaced by bike lanes. And going around Paris by car via the "périphérique" is an absolute nightmare (many sections are being refurbished and some people shouldn't be allowed to drive). Before commuters could cross Paris via the road following the river, it's been mostly closed to create pedestrian areas. Again I am not saying these are bad things but they have been done without waiting for public transportation improvement. Public transportation means are under funded, expensive, unreliable and overcrowded. Many lines are being refurbished and on rush-hour it's a nightmare. Of course the city center is expensive, and that's litteraly what I am pointing at. Paris is not 2 million people, it's 10 more living around it who need to go to work in it or through it and cannot do it the other way around yet.
it's very encouraging to see more and more European cities going this route away from car dependency. Even Belgium which at times feels like the US of Europe when it comes to cars is starting to shift.
As a French native, having lived in Paris for 10 years (from 2008 to 2018), I can say that it's a wrong view to idealize or look at what politicians have done in Paris about ecology because we must know that it has been done to the detriment of the social aspect by resorting to extremely unfair and particularly penalizing measures for modest and poor households. Know that it has set up NO compensation for scrapping vehicles deemed too old, forcing everyone to buy extremely expensive electric vehicles (since public transport has never allowed everyone to go to work). Furthermore, banning "old" vehicles (which is very subjective) is a totally dogmatic measure that is not supported scientifically. In Paris, in 2017, you were no longer allowed to drive a 125cc motorcycle made in 1999. On the other hand, you could drive a Porsche Cayenne made in 2015. This is non sense. Finally, she obliged drivers to stick "Crit'air" labels on all vehicles, to indicate in which "pollution category" they are. Not only was this done in 2017 on the basis of dogma, without any compensation (except a miserable aid of a few hundred euros for the purchase of an electric bicycle.......), but in addition, with these labels, households unable to afford an electric vehicle have been socially stigmatized. I don't know how it is now. Maybe Hidalgo and the others decision makers have changed a bit their views. But what I saw back then was really not an intelligent ecological politic. It was the one that doesn't care at all if people can manage financially. I think big decisions should always be made by people who have a very global vision and a very strong empathy.
Un petit mal pour un grand bien nécessaire. La façon dont ça a été fait peut bien sûr être remise en cause, mais le plus important est que ça a été initié et que ça ira jusqu'au bout. Déjà parce que Paris commençait à avoir mauvaise réputation et il devenait insoutenable d'y aller (que ça soit par obligation en voiture ou pour les visiteurs de banlieue/touristes), mais surtout car il faut changer les mentalités, les entrainer à faire plus de sport, à utiliser des moyens beaucoup plus écologiques, cela répond aussi à un besoin financier avec le coût exorbitant d'une voiture et de l'essence (peu justifié en région parisienne). Hidalgo ferait sûrement une très mauvaise présidente de la république mais elle sait quoi faire de mieux pour Paris et au final pour le monde qui prend exemple sur cette ville (avec les JO par exemple l'assainissement de la Seine). Effectivement il faut décongestionner les transports en commun et les moderniser, tout ceci est en cours, c'est trop lent mais d'ici 2030 cela aura transformé la région parisienne.
@@Bonifacio2A oui et le sur-retard de la livraison des nouvelles rames à étage du RER B est un véritable coup dur du fait du retard du prolongement de la ligne 14 jusqu'à Orly et du report de la ligne 18 qui devait déjà au moins connecter Antony/Massy à Orly. Certes le COVID a ralenti mais ça n'excuse pas 5 ans
I would add the metro strike at the end of 2019 also played a huge factor in getting people on their bikes. For me there is a before and after whereby cycling in Paris was never the same again!
Great video! Here in Montreal, our city mayor is really trying to push forward bicycle paths and the number of bike users has been growing. This said, there’s a lot of growing opposition from inhabitants from the city and around because here, everyone is so attached to their vehicles, so we’ll see how that goes…
Opposition to bike infrastructure in Montreal seems to be softening. It looks to me like the next few years will really bring Montreal to the next level.
Etonnant. J'ai vécu à Montréal de 1989 à 1996 et ce qui m'avait frappé à l'époque c'était la présence de pistes cyclables partout dans la ville. Je faisais mes études l'UdM et je pouvais facilement aller à Sainte-Catherine à pied en traversant le parc du Mont-royal ou en vélo en passant par Laurier. A l'époque Montréal était vraiment très en avance sur ce qui se passait en France et la culture du vélo était en pleine explosion. Evidemment du fait de l'hiver, le vélo n'était pas utilisable 12 mois sur 12, mais quand même je n'ai jamais eu besoin d'une voiture à Montréal pendant toutes ces années. Cette ville est une véritable exception en Amérique du Nord. J'ai la nostalgie des bagels chauds sur Saint Viateur à 3h00 du matin, je m'arrêtais souvent à la fin d'une soirée un peu arrosée pour retrouver un peu de force et continuer jusqu'à chez moi non loin de Côtes-des-Neiges, en vélo bien sûr.
@@ludmilaivanova1603 Actually, the weather in Montreal is very cold during the winter, but from April to October, it is comparable to Paris. People seems to forget that Montreal is on the same latitude as Bordeaux in France, and New York on the same latitude as Madrid. These cities have polar climate in winter, but are actually quite down south compared to many cities in Europe.
i drove from frankfurt/germany to paris last summer with my bicycle. remember passing the same scene as in 0:19 lol. enjoyed alot this afternoon, going completly relaxed through the citycenter on bike.
From a Dutch perspective it is definitely a great improvement of what France has able to pull. So i hope they continue. Once they figure out the structure of uses per street, then it becomes possible for more quality input. But overal i want the focus for cycling to be seen in all European countries to the point that we can link bike lanes together from border to border.
I'm parisian, and a lot of what's been done is amazing. But, as you mention at the end, A LOT still needs to be done, as it is SUPER STRESSFUL biking around the city. For one, many arrangements/ cycling infrastructure was done without actually anticipating the rise of cyclists, hence it is completely obsolete today, and dangerous (Think for instance of the very poorly thought Boulevard Magenta where the cycling lane is ON the sidewalk, creating many accidents with pedestrians, or the infamous Boulevard Sebastopol which has become WAY too narrow for the amount of cyclists, becoming a nightmare for both cyclists AND pedestrians) Secondly, we french unfortunately are not as civilised, respectful/ obedient of the rules as our Dutch or German neighbours. There are a lot of incivilities on both cycling paths and sidewalks which have created evergrowing tensions between parisians, to the point where it has become a nightmare walking down some streets in the summer where with the good weather everyone decides to travel by bike or trotinette, and that wthout following the simple rules, creating TOTAL CHAOS: bikes and trotinettes everywhere, cycle paths, sidewalks, roads, accidents, fights, pedestrians hating cyclists who themselves hate scooters, who themselves hate cars, who themselves hate all two-wheels, who hate buses, who hate taxis, which themselves hate every other motorist or cyclist... You get the picture... Finally, the municipality while thinking of rolling out the infrastructure didn't think of prevention, nor of maintenance and following of the rules. Hance the chaos, and why it has become so stressful to bike, or even just walk around when a selfish cyclist may arrive behind you cycling on the sidewalk without caring for its environment, and push you without stopping or caring.
There are also people suffering from this: all the poor leaving outside of Paris (can’t afford the real estate price there) but working in Paris downtown. The current public transportation outside Paris is not efficient enough for them to get rid of a car and they miss big and affordable parking lots on the immediate outside. So they are using cars and suffering huge traffic jams. But Mme Hidalgo doesn’t care, they are living outside and are not her richer electors from the downtown area. These are satisfied with good public transportation inside Paris and with the ability to walk or ride a bicycle.
The poor living out of Paris could not afford to drive into the center in the first place, they took Public transit, which still exists. Public transit lines are also being expanded, like the Tram networks that all opened in the past 10 years. Cars are incredibly inefficient uses of space, the average parking spot is larger than the minimum apartment size in Paris (10sqm versus 8 sqm). Paris is becoming denser, not less dense, so it is obvious more efficient modes of transit must be prioritized and bicycles are second only to walking.
The difference is everyone already had a car in France in the 1980s, it was not a status symbol. In China and India having a car is a status symbol so even if car ownership doesn't make sense, people will buy them to show off that they can. In France people care more about how they will get comfortably to work, rather than showing off their cars to all the other people stuck in the same traffic jam as they.
@@serebii666 Yup..Its not society its individuals and there might be more people in some societies and less in others.. I sold my bmw and bought a Toyota hybrid. I don't feel the urge to showoff anymore, i don't mind switching to cycle for health reasons.
I would also add that there was a national attitude change towards bikes, corona piste occurred all across the country encourage by the government which they then gave fund to “pérennise” them (make permanent), something many cities did, but manly Paris used extensively to double or triple their cycling infrastructure. A last thing i would add, since 2021, Paris has vastly improved and will continue to do so, I would say after the Olympic Games around 2025-26 will be the right time for cyclists to compare this city to the leading cycling cities.
It would be cool to see a video on Utrecht - it's of course a Dutch city, but I think it really stands apart for how rapidly the city has changed in the last 10-15 years. Entire sections of the city are unrecognizable from barely a decade ago, and poking around on Google Streetview shows a transformation from mediocre bike infrastructure to some of the best in the country. The only road across the city center was recently renovated to reduce dedicated car space to 1.5 lanes and new neighborhoods on the edge of the city are built with no through roads. Not to mention current plans which will introduce the city's first metro line and essentially eliminate 4-lane roads across large sections of sections of the outer city.
Wow so for like half a billion dollars they put bike infrastructure throughout the city. That's the cost of one reasonable sized car bridge, not the ongoing cost, just the cost of building it. It's so cheap it's crazy other cities don't do it.
Especially when you consider that it also slashes the costs of maintaining the infrastructure, as cars inflict far more wear over time than many bicycles.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto And also pollution and health outcomes. Now people get daily exercise AND don't breath in as much toxic pollution. Remember when leaded gasoline was outlawed, how it improved health and IQ statistics? Reintroducing biking will probably have similar effects in future.
@@serebii666 especially if we can make it so bikers don’t have to coexist with quite so many tailpipes. I’d love to be able to more safely and securely ride my bike for short trips…and I’d love to not be what bicyclists and pedestrians have to watch out for when I drive for my longer trips.
It's also because they didn't take any else into consideration, and the result is way waaaay worse than what the video shows. 80% of the people going into Paris daily (so everyone living or working there) disaprove the politic.
As of now, Velib (the bike sharing program) is trash, bikes are broken and it's very expensive, however, it did the job of getting people into biking in the city and then forced them to buy a bicycle. My city recently upgraded the bike sharing program with much better bicycles and more stations and the use has skyrocketed from very few people using it to most people. Let's hope it has the same effect as in Paris because so far it's going great.
Eh, Velib was the previous iteration of the bike share programme. That was scrapped just after lockdown. Today another company took over and that seems to work well. Not yet enough rolling stock, but it is getting better. At least from my perspective as a tri-monthly visitor.
No, he’s right. He’s talking about new company that took over Velib in 2018 (chosen by Hidalgo, by strange means). They took a year to change the stations and the bikes, and now they’re very often broken, dirty…. In addition, Paris need to give them millions, otherwhise they would go bankrupt. So overall, previous company was way better.
I travelled to Paris in 1996 and then again in the fall of 2022. What a transformation! Locals were riding bikes everywhere, even in the rain. I felt like the Amsterdam affect finally took over Paris. I see protected bike lanes everywhere with real safeguards. This benefits pedestrians and tourists who can enjoy looking at the buildings w less honking and noise traffic. So glad to see less ugly parked cars on the streets too. The skies were blue the whole time I was there. Congratulations 🎊🎉 to Mayor Marie Hidalgo.
Thank you for the great video ! A couple additional points: 1- Even before Covid happened in 2020, another (purely French) event caused a brutal increase in the number of bike (and scooter) users: the December 2019-January 2020 transports strike. Many people I know, and indeed myself, started commuting on bike at that point. 2- When we did, we realised that the groundwork on bike paths that had been done *prior* to 2019 had already fundamentally changed the bikeability of Paris. As a born and bred Parisian, this was a revelation. Indeed, some major bike paths connections were completed *during* the strike, so that towards the end of the phase (and 2 months before Lockdown hit), some commuting on bikes had been made even easier. 3- Kudos on explaining how bikelanes were built overnight during the first lockdown. However very few people used them during the actual lockdown - bike usage skyrocketed when people actually went back to working on premises, in the following months. 4- There is a colloquial word in French for '"commuting to work on a bike": Vélotaffer (from vélo=bike and taf=(slang) travail). This word has been around since before the lockdown and helps made "vélotaf" a thing, building online communities, characterising second-hand bike ads etc. 5- All these changes are met with vocal opposition and Hidalgo is one of the most hated figures in French politics today. But she still won re-election, which means that she does indeed have the support of Parisians! Additional points reg Velib. Again kudos on underlining the importance of this event. 1- Velib implemented, on the scale of Paris, a scheme that had already been successfully tested albeit in much smaller cities. Paris was already under left-wing local govt at the time (Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, also a 'socialist', a tall guy just left of ). 2- What's remarkable is that when Velib hit, not only were the Velib bikes in widespread use, but *within weeks* people started using their own bikes in the city too. Bikes that had been gathering dust in grandma's countryside/suburbian house were finding a new life on the streets of the city. Velib was an incredible accelerator of change in that way, too. 3- Within one year of Velibs being around, the proximity of a Velib bikesharing station was being put forward on real-estate ads. A sign that Paris, for all its car-centric conservatism, was in fact ready for a change.
I only live about 5 minutes away from work, so I started using my bike to get there instead of driving. It’s amazing! It makes me feel more active, and I save a lot more on gas. I pretty much only use my car for groceries now, as well as the odd emergency
Coming from London where the "Boris bike" scheme is an abject mess, Velib is a breath of fresh air. €8.90 a month and you can take as many journeys across the city as you like. Sit back on one of their tank-like e-bikes and cruise from one side of the city to the other with minimal effort, magnifique :D
Nice vidéo. Anyway, at 0.10 it is not the Rue de Rivoli at all that is drawn on the map. It is the Avenue de Friedland, Boulevard Haussmann, etc., up to the Place de la République. The rue de Rivoli is along Le Louvres to place de la Concorde.
I'm 10 seconds in the video and... the yellow line is not Rue de Rivoli (which passes along the Louvre and Tuilerie park - the green rectangle near the Seine River in the center) A bit unfortunate to have that wrong 😅 Let's see the rest of it :)
I live in paris and cycling is getting better but not nearly as good as it could be. I'm a car nut, I own a classic mini et an E30, that I only use on the summer as I live in Paris. Of maybe 15.000km I do yearly, 12.000 are done by electric unicycle or bike, the rest is just holiday road tripping. Trying to use your car in Paris is asking for trouble and congestion.... However riding a bike there can be mostly a good experience.
6:22 I agree, being Parisian it still is quite stressful and dangerous BUT you can't compare it to Amsterdam where it's a straight nightmare, I've been biking a lot in this city and the danger/stress really come from other bikes, it's like a busy but fast highway at the rush hour
@@estebantia2413 When it's the rush hour, early morning or at 4pm yes, everyone go so fast and has automatisms, you have few time to make up your mind you better know when to turn or slow down otherwise it's like a dominos crash. But in other conditions Paris is more stressful
Before Covid, there was a series of public transport strikes in France. Parisiens began to look at bicycles as an essential in order to be able to get to the workplace.
In the early 90s, the air pollution in Paris was bad, but to say it was the worst in the world, the guy has never been in New Delhi, India or Istanbul, Turkey. In the same period of time, let me tell you that London wasn't much better than Paris.
I have ridden my bike in Kopenhagen and, yes, that‘s bike heaven. But this year I took my folding bike to Paris… and I was stunned. What a giant step ahead from 2019, when I last visited the city for more than a day in/out and had time to walk around. I rode from my hotel to the office, about 3km (actually, I planned it that way, to experience the rush hour on bike). It works. And it is well accepted - there were so many people taking their bike in the morning, some bike lanes are really narrow and you have crowds at every red light (if the red light is obeyed, that is). So there is quite some anarchy to it, as always in Paris traffic. Some parts of Rue de Rivoli are perfectly designed, some are still work in progress, yes. Other roads, like Boulevard de Magenta, have narrow bike lanes where you must constantly look for pedestrians. However, you can feel quite❤ safe there. And for those, who think about the „lost space“ for cars: First of all, its people, not cars that live in a city. A street like Rue de Rivoli is now a place, where you can live, shop, sit in a restaurant, not a highway. And given the enormous number of cyclists in the city: each of them would otherwise fill the metro or add another car to the roads. So… more bike lanes mean more bike travels, less car travels - and that‘s positive for those who still need to use a car.
Probably been pointed out in other comments, but the street you outline at the beginning of the video on the Paris map ( 0:07 ) is NOT Rue de Rivoli, it is Boulevard Haussmann. Rue de Rivoli runs parallel to the Seine, a little south of Boulevard Haussamnn, just north of the park named "Jardin des Tuileries" (the green rectangle just north of the Seine).
Hello, at the beginning the road highlighted on the map is not rivoli but boulevard haussman which is stil only for cars with no infrastructures for cyclists
I live in Venice Beach CA, ride my bike year round for daily shopping etc. People here bike, scooter, skateboard,and walk everywhere. The 6.3 mi (10km) beach bike path is the most amazing urban lane in the world used by thousands every week. But my neighbors in Santa Monica are experiencing a massive 19 miles to of new investment in cycling infrastructure with Paris like dedicated lanes! The new lanes are awesome and much safer than Venice. They even shut down auto access Colorado Ave for the first 6 blocks from the pier. So proud of the changes and our civic leaders. Santa Monica is on its way to become a bikers paradise.
one of the most expensive subsidies to private car ownership has always been parking, whether free or nominally charged the area given over to cars through it has been at the expense of everyone not just financially but socially and in terms of degrading the experience of living and being in the areas in which it happens. Covid was a real eye opener when parked cars temporarily no longer littered every street
Рік тому
A lot of things must be said and added. I am French, from the Paris region. But I have been living in London for the past 7 years. It was astonishing to see how Paris was crowded with cars and noisy compared to central London. Even though the transformation led by Anne Hidalgo is not extremely popular among people living in the Paris region, this was a much-needed change. Having said that does not mean everything is good. In fact, it is quite the opposite. What's challenging to grasp for people is how small Paris is (administratively). With 105 km², the city is 10 times smaller than London. In parallel, the Paris Urban area is HUGE. The problem is that these two entities (Metropolitan Paris, and the suburb) need to be treated more coherently as you would expect for a huge urban area (such as London, NY etc...). Closing roads for bikes has been a real improvement for local people, but cars have not vanished in one night, they have just used another route. So, yes, central Paris has become quieter, with relatively fewer cars, but at the expanse of the more peripheral areas of Paris and the suburbs that saw more traffic and more congestion. Why is that? Because the region of Paris is extremely centralised: You can easily reach central Paris from any other part of the suburb with public transport, but travelling from one part of the suburb to another is extremely difficult without a car. Thus, most of the people using cars in Paris are not really Parisians but "banlieusards" wishing to cross the capital. So I think the problem(s) start to be clearer: No alternative has been given in response to these multiple closures, and these closures have been envisaged only for the benefit of the local people and not taken coherently with the vaster "Grand Paris". Solutions are on their way with the "Grand Paris Express", but not before 2025 (completion 2035), whilst, in the meantime, central Paris is getting more and more disconnected from the rest of the region.
Great pictures of Paris in gridlock from 40-50 years ago. Love it. Puts current gridlock in perspective - which is still very much a problem. Unfortunately this video takes the "Emily in Paris" approach, and only shows the areas where driving became simply impossible, but not those in other parts of the city where the traffic had eventually to migrate and where the gridlock has become totally insane - especially to get to the "Portes" all around Paris. There's also much more to say about the vagaries of urban planning and how it evolved from a "adapt the city to the car" policy prevalent from the 60's to the late 90's (mostly during Jacques Chirac's 25-year tenure) to the 180° decision by Bertraind Delanoë to import the Swedish model in the early 2000's, ie, "make it so hellish that they'll leave their car at home". Good intentions and clearly better for air quality, but in a typical French fashion, our leaders forgot the second part of the Swedish model, which calls for creating the necessary amount of parking space at the periphery, as well as stepping up public transportation. Our authorities willfully ignored the "park" in "Park & Ride", and the RATP continued to _decrease_ the number of buses. Not a problem for young visitors who can walk, or to older ones who can afford accomodations in the quasi-pedestrian center. Not sure the locals want to live in Disney Land. :)
Hi there, I’m from Paris. For me speaking of bike on Paris is an utopia beacose we have less then 100 of suny day per year. On top of this is not flat with hills to climb. Erase car from circulation is just stressing the actual subway. pop up bike road was existing before covid, it is just a cheaper way to make bike road. Hidalgo is a good mayor only for people living in the midle of paris going work by walk and looking on there selfes.
I usually never comment videos. I'm from Paris for 30 years. It is true that Hidalgo want to stop cars in Paris in order to encourage cycling. The thing is, it's not working properly. They are more traffic jam than before, there are a lot of yellow block to separate bike lane which is horrible. Reducing cars is a great idea but Hidalgo has to increase the transportation budget to allow people who live in suburbs to commute to Paris
Disagree, there were in the past, say the 1930 through the 1960s, when a family could do with one car and when the infrastructure then could accommodate those cars. A friendly city has more to do with how people treat one another with respect, not the transport mode, because human beings are inherently bent towards selfishness and ignorance. You can find people in their own little worlds on a university campus, a cafe patio, a bike path, or Toronto's 401.
I live in Paris and well, on a way it's great to have fewer cars until : you have kids, you need to move, need to transport many objects at once, if you are in a hurry, if you want to leave the city for the weekend, need to bring artisans to your place but they refuse to come because they can't park... There are less way cars but besides bikes, there are not more buses, neither more metros or trams. Plus when you live in the suburbs, you just don't have a choice to have a car. Don't forget Paris is only 2 millions people while there are more than 10 millions in the greater Paris Area. So Paris is becoming more and more just a fancy place for rich people, those who can still afford a car in Paris while not wanting them in their street day to day ...
I visit Paris as a tourist like once every three years. So the small steps the city takes every day accumulate, and when I visit it again it feels like a new experience, sort of. It’s really an amazing city but I always had problems with the traffic and the jams. For example driving on the Boulevard Périphérique was a nightmare. What Paris is doing now will literally save the city.
Actually prohibiting cars to travel through the inner city, is just going to make the périphérique worse and worse. The policy of the city fails to acknowledge one very important information : People who needs to go through Paris, are not necessarly from Paris, nor in the ability to use something else than their car for professional reasons. Paris is surrounded by a huge suburb of dozens of cities. For many people, the emphasis put on bikes, and the new laws banning certain cars, is a major step back in terms of practicality.
What these videos and more generally Cycling enthusiasts forget is that not everyone and every situation is compatible with biking. I live in Paris and Hidalgo’s project made life hard for me for 3 reasons : 1) I have babies and with babies you often need a car to move around, I don’t see myself biking with them 2) my father is handicapped and we used to get around Paris by car when he came. He doesn’t want to come anymore cause he’s stuck and can’t move. Anyway I fully understand that we should use bikes more but the car is still needed in some cases 3) Good luck when you buy a heavy item like a fridge or a couch, you can’t anymore rent a truck and park below your building. Same when you move appartements it has become a nightmare
@@StefanRink It's not everywhere but it's growing. For example Hidalgo wants to transform all the center into a walk only area, so how are people going to get deliveries... I have mixed feelings about this.
@@zaydalaoui9397 Montpellier and most of france's city have walk only area and it's not a problem, residents and deliveries got access to this area when they wanted to. I think and i hope it will be the same design in Paris.
Great video about induced traffic & traffic evaporation... so why are these two key concepts not mentioned once in the whole video, did i miss anything? 😅
I'm in Paris now and I noticed a big difference in the situation of 2 years ago. Now, I think, that the bicycles are more than cars! There are a lot of cycling paths, many of them are separated. There are a lot of parking for bicycles. This make easy moving by bike. And you see bicycles everywhere. Besides there are at least 4 bike sharing systems, of which Velib is the best. Most of the deliveries are made by electric cargo bikes. Let's hope to see a 100% bikes city within 2026. This is a demonstration that political and public participation can make miracles!
What has been the effect towards retail and hotel/restaurant/bar turnover by cutting back car traffic. Has it increased or has it decreased? Has anyone numbers?
No proper numbers are available but according to what I know I guessed it had a bad impact on their sales. First example is the Galleries Lafayette selling the BHV Marais (on rue de Rivoli) because sales decreased recently. It might be an impact of removing cars and making the access to this place more difficult (it takes sometimes 1 hour to drive here from one side of Paris and park). Also, when they changed circulation plans in the Marais, many shopowners feared that they would get less sales (look on local media Bfm Paris)
As a Parisian I don't understand why we don't just prohibit personal cars altogether, allowing cars only for taxis/public services/small businesses/disabled people etc. I see so many people get around Paris in a car just because they feel to fancy to get in the metro with everybody else
Paris didn't have a choice: the air pollution problem was getting of hand, for starters. What they did was essentially add a whole bunch of surface tram systems to supplement the Paris Metro subway and RER commuter rail systems.
Yeah but the 14 tram lines are all outside (or on the immediate border) of the core city, aka "intra-muros" or "Paris proper". The cycling revolution is massive, with the implementation of RER V (for velo = bicycle) and Velopolitain. Both are major cycling path networks with "lines" roughly following the rail based public transportation system they take their names from. On top of that there's the crazy humongous Grand Paris Express project advancing a lot : it's a gigantic expansion of the subway, effectively doubling the length of the current network by adding 4 new fully automated lines with high frequency service (and high capacity for the new M15). Out of the 4 new lines, namely M15, M16, M17 and M18, there will be a huge loop line (75km / 47mi) circling the core city at a distance, exclusively in the suburbs. They are now expecting a minimum of 3 millions of additional daily riders thanks to the new GPE (or GPX) expansion. There are also massive extensions to existing lines (M11 to the East in two stages, the first one opening this year and M14 with a little extension to the North and a very large extension to the South, down to Orly airport, opening in 2024 before the Olympics). 90% of the new lines comprised in the Grand Paris Express project are deep underground. In preparation for the Olympics, major cycling paths are being reinforced both in seclusion and layout. The plan is to move a very substantial number of attendees to the various events by bike, alongside public transportation. They are developing large guarded bike parks, increasing the number of city bike rentals, etc. It will be the "most cycled Olympics" to date. And they intend on keeping everything as is for after the games. The recent tram lines are far from being the main part of the change. To be fair, the tram extensions that are either being built or planned will have more impact than the currently existing lines.
Not even 10s in that video and the Rue de Rivoli depicted on the map is in fact Boulevard Hausmann and several others, which are often jammed with thermic vehicles. There is little to no cafe on the riverside of the Seine, aka "bords de Seine". And the beaches "Paris plage" are temporary during summer months.
Bicycle are definitevely not the one and only answer to urban traffic problems. A bicycle may be a good choice for younger people, but come winter time, the situation drastically changes. We need a balnce mix out of private and public transport, including individual mobility for all generations.
Yes, BUT if more bikes are on the road and less cars, then people with reduced mobility (not really an age issue only) can take Uber/taxis/public transit on quieter roads. Bikes take millions, if not billions of car trips off the road every year around the world.
What they are doing in Paris is definitely impressive but I doubt it can be a template for most other cities in the world. Paris was primed for this development for two reasons: First of all it already had a world-class public transport system with trams, metro, and buses connecting everything with everything else. There was already a very good alternative to driving before they even started with the bike infrastructure. Secondly there is Haussmann's legacy. Nice wide boulevards with broad sidewalks running straight through the city means that there is room for bike paths where they need to share with cars and public transport. Most European cities with their previously walled in centres don't have that. So where Dutch cities like Amsterdam needed to disentangle (ontvlechten) because there just isn't enough room on most roads Paris doesn't need to do that. It also means most of Paris is pleasant to be in with nice architecture(*) and enough green. A safe cycle path through an ugly concrete crevice between anonymous high rise still sucks after all. Paris is gorgeous to be in, why rush through it? (*Understatement of the year award please....)
Enough green? They are trying to massively increase the green part because Paris is highly mineral and extremely dense. The Haussmann boulevards are only the main arteries, the rest are quite narrow streets with little to no vegetation. In most cases (overwhelmingly) they've taken car space, not sidewalk space, to create bike lanes. Just like on the large "marechaux boulevards" encircling Paris' core, parallel to the "peripherique" ring road. They've drastically reduced car space, often to only one lane, giving most of the space to an exclusive right-of-way for tram lines, a pair of bike lanes, while widening sidewalks. Several major radial boulevards have been transformed from 2 or 3 car lanes per side to 1 car lane, a large double width lane for busses and 2 bike lanes. Putting bike lanes on sidewalks is quite the exception in Paris, not the norm. And when they did put bike lanes on sidewalks it was only because the state / government refused that the car lanes be reduced too much for military / security reasons. What Paris or Barcelona did and are doing is very much applicable in other cities, only slightly adapted to the local specificity. Before the changes, many in Paris and around also thought that it wouldn't be possible and way too problematic. It wasn't easy at all, it required efforts and adaptation but they stood by it and it worked. Like it could work in many many many other cities if only they were brave enough to try it with enough will and commitment. The "yeah but Paris is different, it's easier for them" is a bad excuse on top of being simply wrong. Creating a bike lane network following the RER (regional express metro) network, from one end of the agglomeration to the other was and still is not easy but they're doing it, against local officials kicking and screaming if needed. Doubling the length of the metro network with an absolutely humongous metro expansion (Grand Paris Express project) is extremely costly and extremely difficult, but they're doing it. Barcelona has implemented super-blocks and continues to do so, Paris did its version following Barcelona's example, it was complicated and met with strong opposition, but they did it and keep doing it. Effectively closing one major axis like Rivoli to private cars was not easy but they did it. Drastically reducing traffic and sometimes suppressing it entirely in school streets was very difficult, but they did it. The list goes on and on. No one is expecting a one to one application of what did Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen or Paris in other cities. But at least a bold stance and a commitment to effectively change things and implement adapted versions. But not "too adapted" to the point where it doesn't change anything meaningful. It has to hurt a bit or it doesn't have enough impact : things must change, car use must reduce and gentle nudges or nice incentives don't work enough. At some point there must be a real hindrance to private cars' mobility to effectively kickstart the switch towards public transportation and soft mobility. One important thing clearly mentioned in Barcelona : cars are now only guests in the streets belonging to Barcelonians, not the other way around.
In Italy bike lanes are a total waste of Money and space: streets full of unpracticable bike lanes not used at all, but still under construction every where
Meanwhile in Toronto: "OK, so how do we increase cycling without any changes, and how do we decrease car usage without any changes?"
Same in the US 😂
Built it and they will come - in Montreal they clear snow on the main bike paths in winter and every year I see more and more riders out there.
Yeah, the famous pathological reluctance to change.
In Toronto, one good start would be to put streetcars in exclusive right-of-way, separated from the cars and allocate space for cyclists.
Paris removed car lanes by the dozen, they've put circular tram lines in dedicated right-of-way on the boulevards circling the core city, giving trams full stoplight priority, adding large cycling paths and reducing car lanes to a single file on these boulevards.
It was a bit painful for some time but now it's accepted and works perfectly.
People that still want to drive around the core city for distances longer than a few hundreds of meters now have to take the loop road parallel to those boulevards which are now only used by cars for local journeys.
Bikes, busses, taxis and Uber's now go faster and easier on the surface, metros and RER are still super efficient underground, while the private cars go slower.
That's the perfect incentive to switch to public transportation and soft mobility.
Toronto can take example on, and pick measures from Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam or Copenhagen and apply them slightly differently to fit their urban fabric. (Without altering them too much of course).
They're too shy, making changes without changing anything doesn't work! They have to be bold and brave, try something strong and why not *controversial* .
Like maybe the super-block system on parts of Toronto's downtown,l ; Barcelona and Paris each implemented this slightly differently.
A Toronto version of the super-blocks with a bit of exclusive right-of-way for streetcars would be a good start.
And they must stand by it for years, to let the most reluctant to change the time to accept, adapt and get used to them.
And after that, maybe they can stop putting trams in tunnels (I'm looking at you Finch West LRT) and go straight to subways for such kind of structuring lines.
And let's be crazy, maybe turn into a real transit heaven in North America (the bar is set quite low anyway).
@@AbolishCommunism Do not worry for the planet it will survive . But the overutilization are cars is killing the mankind !
Who cares about Toronto 😂
I'm a car guy, I have an r33 skyline and a Toyota MR-2 as my weekend warriors.
That being said, I think cars are horrifically inefficient and as someone who lives close to Amsterdam, I've seen a drastic change in traffic and congestion from the early 90's to now, and I've seen the major improvements that happened in the city by motivating people more to take alternative modes of transport.
They improved the infrastructure drastically and as a result, more and more people take either public transport or use an E-bike to get around. It's much more pleasant to walk around in the city, and I have no problem parking my own car at the edge of the city and take a 10 minute metro drive to the center to contribute to a cleaner, safer and more quiet environment in the city center. I'm 100% for limiting the use of cars in big cities, BUT this should obviously go hand in hand with offering good alternatives like more buses, light rail, bike lanes, etcetera.
We need people with your mindset here in Vienna!
Goed gezegd
Me too, I only drive out of into my Dutch city, not within unless it's a special occasion. I don't drive much but want to own one and be able to drive. For vacation for example, we now have these Amsterdammers that believe they are saving the climate when they take the train to Schiphol, while disconnecting the city from the surrounding country-side and connecting it to New York and Barcelona while that's far worse for climate change. By now the Netherlands is in a state that a bit of moderation with limiting car use is due and the hypocrisy of the anti car air travelling mob should be exposed.
Skylines are so cool lol but yeah i agree bikes and public transit is the way forward
@@vinylrichiejr.2416 Nah, we need the Stadtstraße for 400Million Euro.
/s
Vienna will lack behind 20 years if it the SPÖ wont put his shit together
Some people say that it is more expensive to travel with a family using public transportation instead of using a car but tell yourself this: is it not better to have less cars on the road, less accidents, pollution, traffic ? Have more people exercise, bike, walk safely around ?
Nothing is perfect but I would wager having less cars is defnitely a good thing. Most cars anyways are only transporting one person nodaways, except for holidays. Those who still need to use a car, will. But those who can use other means will switch and that is the entire goal of the transition.
Using public transportation is cheaper. Both for your own family's budget and the city.
Paris is extremely encouraging. Maybe not from a perspective of quality (yet) in terms of the cycling experience, but in terms of the decisiveness and expedience with which the transformation has been pushed over there and also the speed with which people have changed their habbits. That drop in the rate of car ownership is actually crazy. The only other city that has pushed for the same degree of transformation in the same (short) amount of time that i can think of is Seville in Spain, which is of course a much smaller city. But Paris really is proof that given the political will and urgency, not a single european city has a valid excuse not to transform itself into a bike friendly city within a decade or two.
Yaaaaay
You will own nothing and be happy !!
(Sad gullible chump )
@@truthandfreedom8145 Wake up! Car ownership =/= Freedom
@@renaud_bt you clearly just bought the propaganda without actually checking the policies didn't you .....
No cars
No meat
No travel
Stay in your 15 min city
Eat bugs
Eat Synthetic plant material
Exist in meta
This is the road you want to go down and are trying to convince us non propaganda victims to go with you ......
No - you mug ...... We won't go ... Why on earth would we ???
You gullible mug
@@truthandfreedom8145 actually you would have more freedom with the bicycle vs the car. The autonomous cars will truly strip away your freedom. One insult at a political party or some agenda and the same car will drive you to the jail while playing your favorite song.
@@shinobusensui9395 you are deluded propaganda victim if you think a bike gives you more freedom than a car.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👍🤡
Your map of Rue de Rivoli at the beginning is incorrect… but otherwise, great video! I remember, when I was working in Pairs during the covid years, i could see street changes everyday. I recommend you go back and bike again. A LOT has changed in 2 years since you last visited. Another reason why is because paris is using the upcoming Olympics to fast-track changes in the city.
True! That was Boulevard Haussmann. Rue Rivoli is much closer to the Seine River.
@@omarmansour1108 Indeed. But for some reason rue de Rivoli is not even marked as a significant road on the map background!
@@phmagnabosc0 because it’s not. Or at least, not anymore
@@omarmansour1108 I agree of course... if we accept the premise that a bike highway such as present-day Rue de Rivoly doesn't qualify as a 'significant road'. Which says a lot about the relationship we have to private cars as the embodiment of road mobility.
Besides the map exists on screen with a sign reading "1900 Paris", when rue de Rivoli was clearly a major avenue, for whichever vehicule would use it at the time.
Shops are closing in Paris just because those all bikes policy’s
I have been cycling a lot in Paris for over 20 years and I totally agree with your conclusion:
- Paris is far from being a "cylcing utopia"; there are still a lot of problems (too many to be mentioned here) and many other cities (including important cities in France such as Nantes) have much better cycling infrastructure
- But there have been incredibly massive changes during the last 20 years (since the arrival of Velib', one of the first bike-sharing systems in the world and the biggest to this day if I'm not mistaken). The situation has improved a lot.
It took a lot of political courage to Delanoe and Hidalgo because they did it in face of fierce opposition from the right (and many are still very critical about it) and made traffic (promoting biking and public transport against personal cars) the centerpiece of their policy, but the fact that they have been consistently reelected proves that there is support for their policy.
Great video anyway!!
Seeing the dramatic change in Paris gives me a small amount of hope for some US cities. The economics of cars just is not sustainable
*Cries in Taiwan.
@Mike A "Seeing the dramatic change in Paris gives me a small amount of hope for some US cities" Yes, cities in Europe are very dense so a 5 km bike ride is easy and allow you to cross Paris entirely. A conurbation like Los Angeles would call for much longer distances (50 km) but one like Manhattan could be a candidate for conversion.
@@johnjeanb I'm looking at a map, and just the central region of Paris seems to be 10km across?
@@anomanees Parisian here. With Paris "Intra-Muros", 5 km lead you almost anywhere. For the Ile de france (the full conurbation) you need 50 to 100 km.
@@johnjeanb The Paris urban area is more than 50km wide. Bikes are for the center, outside you got a network of trains.
People even go live in Orleans or Chartres, 100km from Paris where they work. High speed train allows for that.
Cycling is particularly great for Paris because although it is densely populated, it isn’t that big in surface area. With a decent cycling infrastructure you can really go anywhere in Paris in a fairly short time !
totally agree with you, European cities are not as big as American so what is good for Europe is not good for America with its long ways to get somewhere.
@@ludmilaivanova1603No, the size of American cities is just a bad excuse to not change anything!
And with electric assistance, distances on bicycles are a lot less problematic.
The (much) lower density in North American cities reduces the problem of overcrowding that is becoming a real issue for cycling infrastructure in Europe, especially Paris, the mother of all hyper-dense cities.
There's a lot of changes to be done in American cities to improve quality of life and urbanism.
The size / urban sprawl is a lame excuse, it will only be slightly different, not impossible at all.
Many in Paris and Europe had a ton of excuses for not doing anything and these excuses were smashed and proved wrong.
The only thing stopping American cities from changing for the better are a terrible lack of will, a toxic addiction to the car and a pathological reluctance to change.
N-A cities probably won't look like Paris, Amsterdam or Copenhagen, that's for sure, but if they're brave enough to try, they'll evolve and create an American city's way of implementing soft mobility evolution.
They'll reform the stupid zoning laws, they'll densify a bit and they'll favor walkability and cyclability over car access.
@@ludmilaivanova1603 True, but by Paris being fairly « small » I was mostly comparing it to Berlin for example, which has a much larger surface. Even London.
Paris is large if you include it’s greater area, then it becomes a 10M people city but actual Paris is quite small.
US Cities as both enormous un size and bike lanes/transit barely exist 😅
@@EliasBac they push for bikes everywhere no matter how much people are going to use them. Harsh winter with much of snow and wind in Canada is not the best condition for bikes. Why there is a tendency to have only one solution for all-so silly.
@@ludmilaivanova1603 Who's talking of one solution for all? There are evidently many options to manage change. And given the experiences in the Netherlands and Copenhagen (which Paris has learned from, thanks guys), people do have quite a bit of knowledge as to what works and what doesn't.
Finland has quite harsh winters, they bike far more than the US. They have solutions.
And what harm is there in trying? Reversing a bike-related piece of infrastructure that doesn't perform as planned is *much cheaper* than reversing a car-related (or indeed bus-related, tram-related) infrastructure that is detrimental to the city.
Great video! This kind of work in promoting cycling should be studied by cities everywhere. The more infrastructure there is the more people will cycle.
Thank you! I agree. So much cities can do to encourage sustainable transportation.
People won't have a choice because you lot are takingus down the - you will own nothing and be happy rubbish with this bike nonsense.....
You literally won't be able to drive and you'll be stuck in your city forever more .....
Sap
@@distilled-earth they will be concentration camps which you can't escape ........
And you are cheering that madness on!!
🤣👍🤡
Actually experience in NL and other countries have shown that providing cycling infrastructure does not by itself increase cycling rates. It is only when cycling infrastructure is combined with measure to make cars travel less convenient for short journeys (traffic calming, closed roads, low traffic neighbourhoods, reduced parking etc) that cycling and walking really takes off. This was mentioned briefly in the video..
No it does not and trying to force it is why Bath is currently fighting to get their streets back from a council who forced their ideas on their city. I have no want or need to ride a bike and my rural area I live in has no need for it. You should look up Bath and Oxford protest against 15 minute cities…. It’s one thing if someone wants to but frameworking a city that almost forced people to is what’s happening… they can take 15 min cities and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Those are dramatic changes, almost half of the cars off the road and a big air quality improvement. Not to mention the quality of driving for the people who actually need to
Pretty amazing!
Yeah no cars !!
Amazing!!
You literally won't be able to leave your city 🤣👍🤡
No cars - no freedom to leave the city.
@@truthandfreedom8145 There's things out there called trains and planes... Much more convenient for inter-city travel. Or someone can always rent a car if it fits their needs. Not everyone wants to own a car. People deserve to live in cities that aren't choked by non stop car traffic.
@@renaud_bt right and ??
No train lines to the wilderness I like to frequent .......
Also you think they are taking your car but you will be able to fly ??
🤣🤣🤣👍🤡
You sad Stockholm syndrome chump 🤣
@@renaud_bt you clearly have zero idea of the policies they are bringing in with this bike rubbish do you .......
They will make the wild places protected zones and you won't be able to leave your 15min city .........
You are taking us all down a road to totalitarian carbon based fascism and all for no reason ...
You gullible mug
it's not only about cycling. Hidalgo is giving priority lanes to buses, removing traffic completely in small streets where there are primary schools as well. I live in a quit area in PAris (that exists ^^) and a big street close by has been reduced to only one lanes for standard cars and the opposite strictly for buses and taxi. The result is a much improved peaceful environment. You can litterally hear the birds when walking on the side walks. Amazing
You could almost say it's not just bikes?
Fake
Hahaha le mensonge 😂
C'est faux, Hidalgo a foutu une merde pas possible dans la capitale
Not really, bus speed is been decreasing since she arrived, and not a lot of new bus lanes have been created (some even got closed).
The only one that promoted the buses was Delanoe (he created most of the bus lanes)
I always am amazed when I see big cities or even countries giving huge importance to cycling. Unfortunately I live in Malta, where cycling has been given almost to 0 importance. Most of us, haven't even rode a bike once.
Change can happen quick!
Which is sad, with the size of the island, it would be fairly possible to shift near entirely towards bikes for most commutes. I'm sure the country could have incredible bike travels :>
Malta is just like Nassau, capital city-island of the Bahama's, everybody drives a car. Hardly anyone cycles. Not Just Bikes made a video about it. ua-cam.com/video/kdz6FeQLuHQ/v-deo.html&ab_channel=NotJustBikes
Also the weather in Malta is probably one of the best in the world
Berlin 3 times bigger than Malta :D I'm new to bicycles, but it's very easy to ride 20-40km and there are no such distances in Malta.
Seeing these changes make me unbelievably happy
As a parisian, I have to say that the cycling policy in Paris has one huge drawback, it was developped for itself, not taking in consideration all the surrounding urban environment and other transportation means,
Most bike lanes were built by transforming former bus lanes, and now all buses are merged into the general traffic and have disastrous schedules, delays etc. Meanwhile, no significant improvement has been done in the existing public transport since 20 years, the new lines (RER E, metro 15-16-17-18, tram extensions) are postponed again and again, there are less buses, metros and trams than before covid because of missing staff, no additional parkings lots have been built to let commuters leave their cars outside of the city etc etc.
This leads to a situation of increased mess, since you do not have less cars, you do have less public transport, and you have some bike travel which will never replace any public transport. Not to mention that when bike lanes are often built directly on the pavement, there are many clashes and accidents with pedestrians (also because too many cyclists believe they are alone and have full priority over anyone else)
Besides, regarding the drop in car ownership, keep in mind that the population of Paris has been decreasing over the last decades for many reasons (so cars number too). Many families have left Paris for suburbs, leaving the city intra-muros for students, rich elderly or tourists (what we call museum-city), population categories that often do not have cars.
Public transit is Pécresse’s area, Hidalgo changes what she can change. Cyclists do create conflicts but that’s mostly because of unsuitable bike infrastructure and a still lacking bike culture. This will only improve with time. Also Paris has the same population today as in 1990.
I live in the suburb area and I take my bike in transports to the entrance of Paris, then I ride my bike inside. Buses still have lanes, they are just shared with taxis or bikes. It feels better and better each day.
Oh t'abuses, oui c'est pas parfait les transports en commun et les aménagements cyclables mais y a quand même un gros effort au niveau des 2. Il y a bien moins de voitures qu'avant et c'est bien plus facile et rapide de se déplacer en vélo. En effet les fréquences des transports en commun ont baissé et il faut absolument qu'elles reaugmentent. Après sur l'aspect strictement transport en commun
le grand Paris express est littéralement le plus grand projet de transport en commun en cours en ce moment dans le monde donc on va pas cracher dessus quand-même. Y a des retards comme dans tous les projets d'envergure malheureusement mais toutes les lignes sont en bonne voie pour ouvrir. Je trouve qu'au global qu'on a pas à se plaindre de ce qui se fait en terme de transport en IDF. Y a des problèmes "localisés" mais ça évolue dans le bon sens au global
And don't forget the biggest change in Paris, a massive influx of third world demographic replacements (who also can't afford cars.)
@@johnathin0061892 Ok papi
there was also a long transport strike in Paris from December 2019 to ~ mid January 2020. Not being able to rely on the metro and bus network to go work while the car was still a bad choice really pushed the need for individual cycle and electric scooters. Then there was covid a those pop up bike lanes got even more popular the summer when people could use their new bikes after months of lock down.
I love what's happening in Paris. Cities are for people, not for cars. It might be awhile before it's convenient to make all trips by bike there, but every car taken off the city streets is a step in the right direction.
💯💯💯
Cities are for people, not for bicycles. That is also true. In certain places in any given city, one will dominate even in shared spaces. Like is at peace with like, relatively speaking, simply because a bicycle is kind of delicate as transport. Both modes need to be separate. In car space, one less bicycle matters. The danger is that if both groups only see each other as opponents and not as human beings with legitimate needs, you may well have your free flowing car traffic or walkable city, but you will hate those who think differently. At that point, it's no different than a religious conflict. The values differ, but the exclusion and resentment are the same.
@@delftfietser There's a huge difference. Infrastructure for cars and car-oriented design of spaces squashes and displaces everything else. Cars eventually completely take over spaces; they are large, they need a lot of space used only for them, they are designed for limited passengers so there can end up being a ton of them, and they demand even more space, large swathes of it, for parking. Cars by their mere existence tend to end up being hostile to everything else, even ignoring the dangers introduced.
Drivers see cyclists as individual nuisances because they end up being forced to share the same space. The environment that let cars dominate is itself a cause of that. But they also get annoyed at losing space to introduce biking infrastructure. Drivers want it both ways. And yet they also don't want the natural conclusion to removing cyclists, for those people to be in cars instead, because then there's more traffic. No, there is no reasonable solution; the "goal" of complaining drivers is for other humans to not exist around them in any way.
Cyclists dislike cars because they can be _killed_ by them, and because car-oriented design overwhelms other options. It takes longer to commute to places you want to go because car-oriented city design (and suburbs) spreads everything outwards, and you still have to deal with interacting with cars even with cycling infrastructure in place. Cycling infra can be multi-use, doesn't have to take up much space to be useful, it doesn't take much space to park, and half the work of cycling infra is about making cyclists safer _from cars._
Going "if drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate cars it's the same thing" is, frankly, entirely wrong.
@dork Cars require their space for their function and speed, like bicycles also do for their function. Nothing in their existence makes their users hostile. You already know that cars and bikes exist together in the Netherlands. Do you believe that smartphones turn users into porn addicts and social media junkies? Good people who know how to use the phone and the bicycle and the car well exist and live decent lives towards themselves and the people around them. Are you advocating for the removal of these devices from their lives because of the toxic people or the activists who cannot control their own fear and hysteria? There is mutual hatred, fear, intolerance, and ugly ignorance on both sides. That has to be killed with truth and mutual understanding.
@dork People on bikes and in cars can coexist. Nearly all of the canal roads of Amsterdam have no painted lanes. They share those narrow roads, passing within three feet of contact if needed. The speed limit is 30km/h. And both need to watch for those on foot. There is dedicated space, neither "Mine!" nor "Yours!" nor one or the other forbidden from being there. There is just people trying to walk, bike, or drive down that street. Of course, there are other roads where one or the other has priority. Absolute equality is not always possible nor always desirable.
The thing that's different with other city, is they do it, they don't spend years to think about it. They do it. So the result is not perfect, sometime a bike line is not very practicle or safe but then a few months later they fix it. It's better to do things quickly and fix it after observation of users and problems than taking years to think about something without doing anything.
There's a French proverb "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien", literally "the best is enemy of the better".
You mentioned quite an example of that in your comment.
Overthinking things and saying we want the best plan before starting any change is the sure way to never do anything.
These everlasting plans are also the best excuse for not changing anything that city councils / politicians have found to never have to actually do something impactful.
In France everybody loves to hate Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo but she gets reelected and everyone is taking interest on Paris and its mobility revolution.
So they must be doing something right even if they are constantly criticized.
Change happened, real change: school streets have reduced traffic or even no traffic at all.
New super-blocks are implemented, forcing cars to exit the super-block and drive around it to go anywhere...
It's great!
When you build a bike infrastructure, it actually takes several years for people to change their habits. This is what happened in Montreal. A lot of criticism at first, buy now it would be hard to go back to no Bixi or bike lanes. The community takes a few (5-10) years to adapt, because those who can no longer park in the street move out to be replaced by those who don't need parking. New condos and apartments can be constructed in the downtown area, with fewer parking requirements.
I live in Paris, yes the rue de Rivoli or other major traffic arteries have been transformed for bicycles except that it is all the other small streets around which are congested with traffic. Driving around in Paris is still hell, parking impossible, public transport is hell, 9 million Ile-de-France residents are excluded from the country's capital and pollution has absolutely not decreased. Paris is certainly not an example for other cities in the world.
It makes my Dutch cycling heart happy to see better biking infrastructure is possible in other cities/countries too. It took us some decades to get where we are, but other cities can adopt it faster because they can see what works and the benefits it has.
Great thing Amsterdam is so connected to Paris with the Thalys. I love spending time in here, 7 hours of bus or 3 hours of train away only, and it's not for the plants or red color!
Paris still lacks a lot of public transportation. The bus company is struggling to recruit and keep bus driver because work conditions are not great and the media keeps bashing them when they go on strike.
Great video. I lived in Paris in the late 90's, we used to cycle around the city for a "Manif a vélo" ( Demonstration on bikes) on weekends, taunting car drivers, and honestly risking our necks. That was when they started building bike lines, that were fiercely opposed, and fiercely defended by pioneering bike users. Just one remark: the map at 10 s does not show Rue de Rivoli, ( it shows Friedland and Haussman Avenues) Rivoli is to the south, closer to the Seine.
Great video. As someone who has been visiting Paris several times a year since 2004, I have seen huge improvements and have been a regular Velib user for more years than I can now remember. There was a "hiccup" when they changed operators but with the subsequent expansion of the network and introduction of e-bikes it is an excellent way to get around Paris.
Paris drivers hate Anne Idalgo, but I think she is right forcing a dramatic reduction of cars in the city.
I’m in Paris right now and it’s a huge difference from 10 years ago. There is so little traffic. And most of it in the congested areas are work trucks, buses and delivery trucks. The boulevards have much shorter crossing distances. Tons of bike parking now. It’s just amazing and much more pleasant and quieter.
In addition, we can also talk about the numerous projects carried out by Île de France mobilités (the organisation responsible for transport in the Paris region), including the Grand Paris Express, the largest rail project in Europe, and many other projects designed to get Parisians on public transport. Paris is doing a lot for transport and the ecological transition.
Another great video! France is quite an interesting country and Paris an interesting city. I didn’t realise how good they were at moving transport/mobility in the right direction
Thank you!
With the Olympics, just like with COVID, it'll keep going in the right direction faster, it will open paths for experimentation (with redesigned areas, more pedestrian area etc). For instance, it's incredible to finally start the sanitation of the Seine which has very bad reputation (although it was 1000x dirtier 100 years ago) but will be clean enough to swim in for 2024 or 2025.
It's just propaganda bro, do not believe it please
Hey, just wanted to say that what you're showing at 0:10 is the Boulevard Haussmann, not the Rue de Rivoli.
As a Parisian, cycling is good as long as you have a dedicated bike lane. Otherwise, you have to cross traffic since many intersection haven't been redone, and cars are still here. Cars are still being the main danger that we somehow accept for some reason. I'll vote for her if she stops building ridiculous skyscrapers inside Paris and does more to eliminate cars entirely from our city. Cars do not belong here.
Nice video overall !
Which skyscrapers?
There's only a very limited number on the extreme outskirts of the core like the Triangle tower or the Duo tower, a meter further and they would be outside municipal city limits
Other than that there are no skyscrapers being built nor planned in the center of Paris.
And these outlying towers have the merits of reinforcing the pressure towards extending metro lines, like the Duo towers is a strong asset to push for line M10's extension Southeast to Vitry, they also bring much needed funds to further advance the switch from car mobility to pedestrian, cycling and transportation infrastructure.
After that, the problem with cars is that the city hall can only do so much and the government often contradicts or blocks the mayor's plans, most of the time for political reasons.
The right side candidates complain 24/7 about the "war on cars" and the government's possible candidate isn't much better in that matter (either spouting plans that completely bonkers or wanting to stop the reduction of car space).
The "police prefecture" is the number one obstacle on anything reducing car space.
They constantly try to block pedestrian and cycling infrastructure upgrades or conversions.
They forced the Magenta bike lanes onto sidewalks instead of dedicated lanes, officially to "preserve trees" but the trees never were threatened on the mayor's plans.
The list goes on and on.
For cycling, walkability and public transportation, the current mayor and majority have shown quite a strong willingness and took a bold stance that is either less or completely absent among other candidates / groups.
It's never gonna be enough, mostly due to the neverending list of obstacles laid by the government / prefecture and political opponents or special interests groups.
But seeing what others are promising, either dishonestly or unrealistically, I really don't want to try them.
Ce n’est pas la seule erreur !
The only issue is that Paris is not only a 2-million-inhabitant city, there are 10 millions people orbiting around it, who need to go to work, leisure and travel. Those bike lanes are a great thing when you are living in Paris center. But for everyone living in the suburbs it's a nightmare now that parking spots are scarce and expensive, common transportation means are inefficient, expensive, and overcrowded with so many lines under refurbishment. Plus absolutely no thought is given to people working by night.
There's still an incredible amount of things to do... And understanding what Paris is before forgetting so many people would be one major step forward.
The problem is mainly the hyper concentration of activities in central Paris. By decentralizing jobs, and encouraging large companies to settle even in the nearby suburbs, it would relieve the main traffic axes. This is the idea of the Grand Paris express. To be able to live in Versailles and work in Versailles or in neighboring towns.
@@Misterjingle yes definitely, but it is an issue that has been known for decades and the fix is years late (between Grand Paris or moving jobs from Paris to elsewhere) . Meanwhile, Paris (intramuros) is moving and not waiting for it.
I grew up in Paris suburbs and I really love those bike lanes or even the new pedestrian free space on the riverside. It's amazing to spend time enjoying this beautiful city. But when looking at it with a critical eye, it really just moved away the latent issues with Paris and left them for suburbians to deal with. Overcentralization of everything is the main issue.
That's actually one of the reasons why I don't want to go live back there.
@@Tornadospring You point out the other main problem. It is the lack of consultation and common projects between Paris and its suburbs. What could really shake things up is a merger of the municipalities of Paris and the inner suburbs, in order to bring the issues closer together and set up joint development projects. But we are entering here into a subject that is far too sensitive at the political level and at the local power level.
If there already is no parking for them in the center, then it is obvious that more car dependent policies won't work. People from outside the ceinture should be using Public transit to get into the center, especially if their destination is in the Center. If people are trying to go from one end of the city to another, then they should not be driving through the center in the first place.
The city center is logically the most desirable and expensive in terms of meters squared. It is ridiculous then to have so much of the public space be devoted to parked cars, which them selves can take up more room than even Paris apartments (1 parking space is in general 10sqm). Cars simply do not belong into city centers, they are most useful in the rural landscape where there is no alternate transit.
@@serebii666 There used to be many more parking spots that have been replaced by bike lanes.
And going around Paris by car via the "périphérique" is an absolute nightmare (many sections are being refurbished and some people shouldn't be allowed to drive). Before commuters could cross Paris via the road following the river, it's been mostly closed to create pedestrian areas.
Again I am not saying these are bad things but they have been done without waiting for public transportation improvement.
Public transportation means are under funded, expensive, unreliable and overcrowded. Many lines are being refurbished and on rush-hour it's a nightmare.
Of course the city center is expensive, and that's litteraly what I am pointing at. Paris is not 2 million people, it's 10 more living around it who need to go to work in it or through it and cannot do it the other way around yet.
it's very encouraging to see more and more European cities going this route away from car dependency. Even Belgium which at times feels like the US of Europe when it comes to cars is starting to shift.
As a French native, having lived in Paris for 10 years (from 2008 to 2018), I can say that it's a wrong view to idealize or look at what politicians have done in Paris about ecology because we must know that it has been done to the detriment of the social aspect by resorting to extremely unfair and particularly penalizing measures for modest and poor households. Know that it has set up NO compensation for scrapping vehicles deemed too old, forcing everyone to buy extremely expensive electric vehicles (since public transport has never allowed everyone to go to work).
Furthermore, banning "old" vehicles (which is very subjective) is a totally dogmatic measure that is not supported scientifically. In Paris, in 2017, you were no longer allowed to drive a 125cc motorcycle made in 1999. On the other hand, you could drive a Porsche Cayenne made in 2015. This is non sense. Finally, she obliged drivers to stick "Crit'air" labels on all vehicles, to indicate in which "pollution category" they are. Not only was this done in 2017 on the basis of dogma, without any compensation (except a miserable aid of a few hundred euros for the purchase of an electric bicycle.......), but in addition, with these labels, households unable to afford an electric vehicle have been socially stigmatized.
I don't know how it is now. Maybe Hidalgo and the others decision makers have changed a bit their views. But what I saw back then was really not an intelligent ecological politic. It was the one that doesn't care at all if people can manage financially.
I think big decisions should always be made by people who have a very global vision and a very strong empathy.
+1
Un petit mal pour un grand bien nécessaire. La façon dont ça a été fait peut bien sûr être remise en cause, mais le plus important est que ça a été initié et que ça ira jusqu'au bout. Déjà parce que Paris commençait à avoir mauvaise réputation et il devenait insoutenable d'y aller (que ça soit par obligation en voiture ou pour les visiteurs de banlieue/touristes), mais surtout car il faut changer les mentalités, les entrainer à faire plus de sport, à utiliser des moyens beaucoup plus écologiques, cela répond aussi à un besoin financier avec le coût exorbitant d'une voiture et de l'essence (peu justifié en région parisienne).
Hidalgo ferait sûrement une très mauvaise présidente de la république mais elle sait quoi faire de mieux pour Paris et au final pour le monde qui prend exemple sur cette ville (avec les JO par exemple l'assainissement de la Seine).
Effectivement il faut décongestionner les transports en commun et les moderniser, tout ceci est en cours, c'est trop lent mais d'ici 2030 cela aura transformé la région parisienne.
Le vrai problème c'est d'être obligé de passer par Paris pour aller d'une banlieue à une autre, le grand paris express essaie d'y répondre
@@Bonifacio2A oui et le sur-retard de la livraison des nouvelles rames à étage du RER B est un véritable coup dur du fait du retard du prolongement de la ligne 14 jusqu'à Orly et du report de la ligne 18 qui devait déjà au moins connecter Antony/Massy à Orly. Certes le COVID a ralenti mais ça n'excuse pas 5 ans
I would add the metro strike at the end of 2019 also played a huge factor in getting people on their bikes. For me there is a before and after whereby cycling in Paris was never the same again!
Great video! Here in Montreal, our city mayor is really trying to push forward bicycle paths and the number of bike users has been growing. This said, there’s a lot of growing opposition from inhabitants from the city and around because here, everyone is so attached to their vehicles, so we’ll see how that goes…
Opposition to bike infrastructure in Montreal seems to be softening. It looks to me like the next few years will really bring Montreal to the next level.
Etonnant. J'ai vécu à Montréal de 1989 à 1996 et ce qui m'avait frappé à l'époque c'était la présence de pistes cyclables partout dans la ville. Je faisais mes études l'UdM et je pouvais facilement aller à Sainte-Catherine à pied en traversant le parc du Mont-royal ou en vélo en passant par Laurier. A l'époque Montréal était vraiment très en avance sur ce qui se passait en France et la culture du vélo était en pleine explosion. Evidemment du fait de l'hiver, le vélo n'était pas utilisable 12 mois sur 12, mais quand même je n'ai jamais eu besoin d'une voiture à Montréal pendant toutes ces années. Cette ville est une véritable exception en Amérique du Nord. J'ai la nostalgie des bagels chauds sur Saint Viateur à 3h00 du matin, je m'arrêtais souvent à la fin d'une soirée un peu arrosée pour retrouver un peu de force et continuer jusqu'à chez moi non loin de Côtes-des-Neiges, en vélo bien sûr.
it is not too cold to bike in Montreal?
@@ludmilaivanova1603 Actually, the weather in Montreal is very cold during the winter, but from April to October, it is comparable to Paris. People seems to forget that Montreal is on the same latitude as Bordeaux in France, and New York on the same latitude as Madrid. These cities have polar climate in winter, but are actually quite down south compared to many cities in Europe.
@@lesfreresdelaquote1176 so, how are you going to use bikes from October to April-6 month? In a frost -25?
i drove from frankfurt/germany to paris last summer with my bicycle. remember passing the same scene as in 0:19 lol. enjoyed alot this afternoon, going completly relaxed through the citycenter on bike.
From a Dutch perspective it is definitely a great improvement of what France has able to pull.
So i hope they continue.
Once they figure out the structure of uses per street, then it becomes possible for more quality input.
But overal i want the focus for cycling to be seen in all European countries to the point that we can link bike lanes together from border to border.
I'm parisian, and a lot of what's been done is amazing. But, as you mention at the end, A LOT still needs to be done, as it is SUPER STRESSFUL biking around the city.
For one, many arrangements/ cycling infrastructure was done without actually anticipating the rise of cyclists, hence it is completely obsolete today, and dangerous (Think for instance of the very poorly thought Boulevard Magenta where the cycling lane is ON the sidewalk, creating many accidents with pedestrians, or the infamous Boulevard Sebastopol which has become WAY too narrow for the amount of cyclists, becoming a nightmare for both cyclists AND pedestrians)
Secondly, we french unfortunately are not as civilised, respectful/ obedient of the rules as our Dutch or German neighbours. There are a lot of incivilities on both cycling paths and sidewalks which have created evergrowing tensions between parisians, to the point where it has become a nightmare walking down some streets in the summer where with the good weather everyone decides to travel by bike or trotinette, and that wthout following the simple rules, creating TOTAL CHAOS: bikes and trotinettes everywhere, cycle paths, sidewalks, roads, accidents, fights, pedestrians hating cyclists who themselves hate scooters, who themselves hate cars, who themselves hate all two-wheels, who hate buses, who hate taxis, which themselves hate every other motorist or cyclist... You get the picture...
Finally, the municipality while thinking of rolling out the infrastructure didn't think of prevention, nor of maintenance and following of the rules. Hance the chaos, and why it has become so stressful to bike, or even just walk around when a selfish cyclist may arrive behind you cycling on the sidewalk without caring for its environment, and push you without stopping or caring.
Thank you for this great video. I live in Paris and I love these changes, which make the city much more pleasant !
@distilled 0:11 this is not rue de rivoli in yellow.
Every new mile of bike lane puts a smile on my face.
Omg Marcel was my professor!! Such a pleasant surprise to see him!
There are also people suffering from this: all the poor leaving outside of Paris (can’t afford the real estate price there) but working in Paris downtown.
The current public transportation outside Paris is not efficient enough for them to get rid of a car and they miss big and affordable parking lots on the immediate outside.
So they are using cars and suffering huge traffic jams.
But Mme Hidalgo doesn’t care, they are living outside and are not her richer electors from the downtown area.
These are satisfied with good public transportation inside Paris and with the ability to walk or ride a bicycle.
The poor living out of Paris could not afford to drive into the center in the first place, they took Public transit, which still exists.
Public transit lines are also being expanded, like the Tram networks that all opened in the past 10 years.
Cars are incredibly inefficient uses of space, the average parking spot is larger than the minimum apartment size in Paris (10sqm versus 8 sqm). Paris is becoming denser, not less dense, so it is obvious more efficient modes of transit must be prioritized and bicycles are second only to walking.
India and China had all bicycles in 1980s now its all cars and bikes. France had all cars in 80s now its all bikes. Full circle of life..😂
The difference is everyone already had a car in France in the 1980s, it was not a status symbol. In China and India having a car is a status symbol so even if car ownership doesn't make sense, people will buy them to show off that they can. In France people care more about how they will get comfortably to work, rather than showing off their cars to all the other people stuck in the same traffic jam as they.
@@serebii666 That happens when you own cars long enough that buying one doesn't signify you are better than the neighbor.
@@KarthikSoun Or when your society is wealthy enough that a 20k car is nothing special.
@@serebii666 Yup..Its not society its individuals and there might be more people in some societies and less in others.. I sold my bmw and bought a Toyota hybrid. I don't feel the urge to showoff anymore, i don't mind switching to cycle for health reasons.
The same thing happend in the Netherlands.
Paris is becoming beautiful again 🌹🫶
😂😂
Paris est devenu INVIVABLE au contraire !!
Hell no. Even though the bike program is important, they don’t give a f*ck about those who can’t use them. And city is not well maintained
I would also add that there was a national attitude change towards bikes, corona piste occurred all across the country encourage by the government which they then gave fund to “pérennise” them (make permanent), something many cities did, but manly Paris used extensively to double or triple their cycling infrastructure. A last thing i would add, since 2021, Paris has vastly improved and will continue to do so, I would say after the Olympic Games around 2025-26 will be the right time for cyclists to compare this city to the leading cycling cities.
It would be cool to see a video on Utrecht - it's of course a Dutch city, but I think it really stands apart for how rapidly the city has changed in the last 10-15 years. Entire sections of the city are unrecognizable from barely a decade ago, and poking around on Google Streetview shows a transformation from mediocre bike infrastructure to some of the best in the country. The only road across the city center was recently renovated to reduce dedicated car space to 1.5 lanes and new neighborhoods on the edge of the city are built with no through roads. Not to mention current plans which will introduce the city's first metro line and essentially eliminate 4-lane roads across large sections of sections of the outer city.
Wow so for like half a billion dollars they put bike infrastructure throughout the city. That's the cost of one reasonable sized car bridge, not the ongoing cost, just the cost of building it.
It's so cheap it's crazy other cities don't do it.
Especially when you consider that it also slashes the costs of maintaining the infrastructure, as cars inflict far more wear over time than many bicycles.
@@LeeHawkinsPhoto And also pollution and health outcomes. Now people get daily exercise AND don't breath in as much toxic pollution. Remember when leaded gasoline was outlawed, how it improved health and IQ statistics? Reintroducing biking will probably have similar effects in future.
@@serebii666 especially if we can make it so bikers don’t have to coexist with quite so many tailpipes. I’d love to be able to more safely and securely ride my bike for short trips…and I’d love to not be what bicyclists and pedestrians have to watch out for when I drive for my longer trips.
It's also because they didn't take any else into consideration, and the result is way waaaay worse than what the video shows. 80% of the people going into Paris daily (so everyone living or working there) disaprove the politic.
As of now, Velib (the bike sharing program) is trash, bikes are broken and it's very expensive, however, it did the job of getting people into biking in the city and then forced them to buy a bicycle.
My city recently upgraded the bike sharing program with much better bicycles and more stations and the use has skyrocketed from very few people using it to most people. Let's hope it has the same effect as in Paris because so far it's going great.
Eh, Velib was the previous iteration of the bike share programme. That was scrapped just after lockdown. Today another company took over and that seems to work well. Not yet enough rolling stock, but it is getting better. At least from my perspective as a tri-monthly visitor.
No, he’s right. He’s talking about new company that took over Velib in 2018 (chosen by Hidalgo, by strange means). They took a year to change the stations and the bikes, and now they’re very often broken, dirty…. In addition, Paris need to give them millions, otherwhise they would go bankrupt. So overall, previous company was way better.
I really like how modern B&W pics are mixed with older pics to make it look like there's a lot of pics from the past x)
I travelled to Paris in 1996 and then again in the fall of 2022. What a transformation! Locals were riding bikes everywhere, even in the rain. I felt like the Amsterdam affect finally took over Paris. I see protected bike lanes everywhere with real safeguards. This benefits pedestrians and tourists who can enjoy looking at the buildings w less honking and noise traffic. So glad to see less ugly parked cars on the streets too. The skies were blue the whole time I was there. Congratulations 🎊🎉 to Mayor Marie Hidalgo.
Great video! Hopefully more cities follow suit!
The Worlds greatest Bicycle Race is Tour de France,but more importantly its citizens can Tour de Paris,❤from Australia 👍
Thank you Anne HIDALGO !
She's the one who protected Paris from cars against popular opinion and WE should be thankfull
I said London should have done this years ago. Stop the traffic and let the cycles in ❤
Let the cars in, especially Mustang ❤
Thank you for the great video ! A couple additional points:
1- Even before Covid happened in 2020, another (purely French) event caused a brutal increase in the number of bike (and scooter) users: the December 2019-January 2020 transports strike. Many people I know, and indeed myself, started commuting on bike at that point.
2- When we did, we realised that the groundwork on bike paths that had been done *prior* to 2019 had already fundamentally changed the bikeability of Paris. As a born and bred Parisian, this was a revelation. Indeed, some major bike paths connections were completed *during* the strike, so that towards the end of the phase (and 2 months before Lockdown hit), some commuting on bikes had been made even easier.
3- Kudos on explaining how bikelanes were built overnight during the first lockdown. However very few people used them during the actual lockdown - bike usage skyrocketed when people actually went back to working on premises, in the following months.
4- There is a colloquial word in French for '"commuting to work on a bike": Vélotaffer (from vélo=bike and taf=(slang) travail). This word has been around since before the lockdown and helps made "vélotaf" a thing, building online communities, characterising second-hand bike ads etc.
5- All these changes are met with vocal opposition and Hidalgo is one of the most hated figures in French politics today. But she still won re-election, which means that she does indeed have the support of Parisians!
Additional points reg Velib. Again kudos on underlining the importance of this event.
1- Velib implemented, on the scale of Paris, a scheme that had already been successfully tested albeit in much smaller cities. Paris was already under left-wing local govt at the time (Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, also a 'socialist', a tall guy just left of ).
2- What's remarkable is that when Velib hit, not only were the Velib bikes in widespread use, but *within weeks* people started using their own bikes in the city too. Bikes that had been gathering dust in grandma's countryside/suburbian house were finding a new life on the streets of the city. Velib was an incredible accelerator of change in that way, too.
3- Within one year of Velibs being around, the proximity of a Velib bikesharing station was being put forward on real-estate ads. A sign that Paris, for all its car-centric conservatism, was in fact ready for a change.
I only live about 5 minutes away from work, so I started using my bike to get there instead of driving. It’s amazing! It makes me feel more active, and I save a lot more on gas. I pretty much only use my car for groceries now, as well as the odd emergency
Coming from London where the "Boris bike" scheme is an abject mess, Velib is a breath of fresh air. €8.90 a month and you can take as many journeys across the city as you like. Sit back on one of their tank-like e-bikes and cruise from one side of the city to the other with minimal effort, magnifique :D
Hope we see more of this!
Brilliant video!
Thank you!
C’est FAUX !!!
Surtout Hidalgo se faisant applaudir ! 😂
Nice vidéo. Anyway, at 0.10 it is not the Rue de Rivoli at all that is drawn on the map. It is the Avenue de Friedland, Boulevard Haussmann, etc., up to the Place de la République. The rue de Rivoli is along Le Louvres to place de la Concorde.
I'm 10 seconds in the video and... the yellow line is not Rue de Rivoli (which passes along the Louvre and Tuilerie park - the green rectangle near the Seine River in the center)
A bit unfortunate to have that wrong 😅
Let's see the rest of it :)
I live in paris and cycling is getting better but not nearly as good as it could be. I'm a car nut, I own a classic mini et an E30, that I only use on the summer as I live in Paris. Of maybe 15.000km I do yearly, 12.000 are done by electric unicycle or bike, the rest is just holiday road tripping. Trying to use your car in Paris is asking for trouble and congestion.... However riding a bike there can be mostly a good experience.
To help in this effort, Paris has an extensive public transit system, making cars less necessary.
0:10 This is not rue de Rivoli, but the "Grands Boulevards".
6:22 I agree, being Parisian it still is quite stressful and dangerous BUT you can't compare it to Amsterdam where it's a straight nightmare, I've been biking a lot in this city and the danger/stress really come from other bikes, it's like a busy but fast highway at the rush hour
You think biking around Amsterdam is more stressful than in Paris?
@@estebantia2413 When it's the rush hour, early morning or at 4pm yes, everyone go so fast and has automatisms, you have few time to make up your mind you better know when to turn or slow down otherwise it's like a dominos crash. But in other conditions Paris is more stressful
@@Assassunn interesting, thanks 👍🏻
Before Covid, there was a series of public transport strikes in France. Parisiens began to look at bicycles as an essential in order to be able to get to the workplace.
The road you highlighted at 0:09 is not Rue Rivoli, but Boulevard Haussmann.
In the early 90s, the air pollution in Paris was bad, but to say it was the worst in the world, the guy has never been in New Delhi, India or Istanbul, Turkey. In the same period of time, let me tell you that London wasn't much better than Paris.
I have ridden my bike in Kopenhagen and, yes, that‘s bike heaven. But this year I took my folding bike to Paris… and I was stunned. What a giant step ahead from 2019, when I last visited the city for more than a day in/out and had time to walk around. I rode from my hotel to the office, about 3km (actually, I planned it that way, to experience the rush hour on bike). It works.
And it is well accepted - there were so many people taking their bike in the morning, some bike lanes are really narrow and you have crowds at every red light (if the red light is obeyed, that is). So there is quite some anarchy to it, as always in Paris traffic. Some parts of Rue de Rivoli are perfectly designed, some are still work in progress, yes. Other roads, like Boulevard de Magenta, have narrow bike lanes where you must constantly look for pedestrians. However, you can feel quite❤ safe there.
And for those, who think about the „lost space“ for cars: First of all, its people, not cars that live in a city. A street like Rue de Rivoli is now a place, where you can live, shop, sit in a restaurant, not a highway. And given the enormous number of cyclists in the city: each of them would otherwise fill the metro or add another car to the roads. So… more bike lanes mean more bike travels, less car travels - and that‘s positive for those who still need to use a car.
Denver has made big moves to add bike lanes and take out car lanes.
I always hated Paris but last time I went, a friend gave me his bike and it was amazing. I still hate Paris, but transport is now great!
My country (Malaysia) is the most car-centric country in Southeast Asia, and I'm proud of it.
@@InspectorAyamKampung Question, why would you be proud of that? Being car-centric is quite dangerous.
Great video, but the beginning was funny... "Look at Paris before cars existed/became affordable, there were no cars!" 😅
Probably been pointed out in other comments, but the street you outline at the beginning of the video on the Paris map ( 0:07 ) is NOT Rue de Rivoli, it is Boulevard Haussmann. Rue de Rivoli runs parallel to the Seine, a little south of Boulevard Haussamnn, just north of the park named "Jardin des Tuileries" (the green rectangle just north of the Seine).
@Claude Lemaire
Aujourd’hui la circulation dans Paris est « dilatée comme jamais »!…
Melbourne has the potential to become a cycling city and transit city!
Thanks for this video.
The name of the paris mayor is Anne Hidalgo and not Hidolga.
Et elle est détestée à Paris..!
Et en France !! Moins de 2% aux élections présidentielles !!!
😉
Hey, don't forget credit for Delanoë, the mayor before Hidalgo, who started the Vélib scheme! He's visible, clapping, at about 3:01
Hello, at the beginning the road highlighted on the map is not rivoli but boulevard haussman which is stil only for cars with no infrastructures for cyclists
I live in Venice Beach CA, ride my bike year round for daily shopping etc. People here bike, scooter, skateboard,and walk everywhere. The 6.3 mi (10km) beach bike path is the most amazing urban lane in the world used by thousands every week. But my neighbors in Santa Monica are experiencing a massive 19 miles to of new investment in cycling infrastructure with Paris like dedicated lanes! The new lanes are awesome and much safer than Venice. They even shut down auto access Colorado Ave for the first 6 blocks from the pier. So proud of the changes and our civic leaders. Santa Monica is on its way to become a bikers paradise.
one of the most expensive subsidies to private car ownership has always been parking, whether free or nominally charged the area given over to cars through it has been at the expense of everyone not just financially but socially and in terms of degrading the experience of living and being in the areas in which it happens. Covid was a real eye opener when parked cars temporarily no longer littered every street
A lot of things must be said and added.
I am French, from the Paris region. But I have been living in London for the past 7 years. It was astonishing to see how Paris was crowded with cars and noisy compared to central London. Even though the transformation led by Anne Hidalgo is not extremely popular among people living in the Paris region, this was a much-needed change.
Having said that does not mean everything is good. In fact, it is quite the opposite. What's challenging to grasp for people is how small Paris is (administratively). With 105 km², the city is 10 times smaller than London. In parallel, the Paris Urban area is HUGE. The problem is that these two entities (Metropolitan Paris, and the suburb) need to be treated more coherently as you would expect for a huge urban area (such as London, NY etc...). Closing roads for bikes has been a real improvement for local people, but cars have not vanished in one night, they have just used another route. So, yes, central Paris has become quieter, with relatively fewer cars, but at the expanse of the more peripheral areas of Paris and the suburbs that saw more traffic and more congestion. Why is that? Because the region of Paris is extremely centralised: You can easily reach central Paris from any other part of the suburb with public transport, but travelling from one part of the suburb to another is extremely difficult without a car. Thus, most of the people using cars in Paris are not really Parisians but "banlieusards" wishing to cross the capital.
So I think the problem(s) start to be clearer: No alternative has been given in response to these multiple closures, and these closures have been envisaged only for the benefit of the local people and not taken coherently with the vaster "Grand Paris". Solutions are on their way with the "Grand Paris Express", but not before 2025 (completion 2035), whilst, in the meantime, central Paris is getting more and more disconnected from the rest of the region.
Great pictures of Paris in gridlock from 40-50 years ago. Love it. Puts current gridlock in perspective - which is still very much a problem. Unfortunately this video takes the "Emily in Paris" approach, and only shows the areas where driving became simply impossible, but not those in other parts of the city where the traffic had eventually to migrate and where the gridlock has become totally insane - especially to get to the "Portes" all around Paris. There's also much more to say about the vagaries of urban planning and how it evolved from a "adapt the city to the car" policy prevalent from the 60's to the late 90's (mostly during Jacques Chirac's 25-year tenure) to the 180° decision by Bertraind Delanoë to import the Swedish model in the early 2000's, ie, "make it so hellish that they'll leave their car at home". Good intentions and clearly better for air quality, but in a typical French fashion, our leaders forgot the second part of the Swedish model, which calls for creating the necessary amount of parking space at the periphery, as well as stepping up public transportation. Our authorities willfully ignored the "park" in "Park & Ride", and the RATP continued to _decrease_ the number of buses. Not a problem for young visitors who can walk, or to older ones who can afford accomodations in the quasi-pedestrian center. Not sure the locals want to live in Disney Land. :)
Very nice vid, thanks 🙌
Hi there, I’m from Paris.
For me speaking of bike on Paris is an utopia beacose we have less then 100 of suny day per year. On top of this is not flat with hills to climb.
Erase car from circulation is just stressing the actual subway.
pop up bike road was existing before covid, it is just a cheaper way to make bike road.
Hidalgo is a good mayor only for people living in the midle of paris going work by walk and looking on there selfes.
I usually never comment videos. I'm from Paris for 30 years. It is true that Hidalgo want to stop cars in Paris in order to encourage cycling. The thing is, it's not working properly. They are more traffic jam than before, there are a lot of yellow block to separate bike lane which is horrible.
Reducing cars is a great idea but Hidalgo has to increase the transportation budget to allow people who live in suburbs to commute to Paris
There's no friendly car-centric big city on our planet. Friendly city and car-centric are opposites.
Disagree, there were in the past, say the 1930 through the 1960s, when a family could do with one car and when the infrastructure then could accommodate those cars. A friendly city has more to do with how people treat one another with respect, not the transport mode, because human beings are inherently bent towards selfishness and ignorance. You can find people in their own little worlds on a university campus, a cafe patio, a bike path, or Toronto's 401.
Cars don't make cities unfriendly. CRIME makes cities unfriendly (and a high cost of living doesn't help either.)
I live in Paris and well, on a way it's great to have fewer cars until : you have kids, you need to move, need to transport many objects at once, if you are in a hurry, if you want to leave the city for the weekend, need to bring artisans to your place but they refuse to come because they can't park...
There are less way cars but besides bikes, there are not more buses, neither more metros or trams.
Plus when you live in the suburbs, you just don't have a choice to have a car. Don't forget Paris is only 2 millions people while there are more than 10 millions in the greater Paris Area. So Paris is becoming more and more just a fancy place for rich people, those who can still afford a car in Paris while not wanting them in their street day to day ...
I live in paris and its pedestrian hell the cycles almost kill you at every turn
I visit Paris as a tourist like once every three years. So the small steps the city takes every day accumulate, and when I visit it again it feels like a new experience, sort of.
It’s really an amazing city but I always had problems with the traffic and the jams. For example driving on the Boulevard Périphérique was a nightmare.
What Paris is doing now will literally save the city.
Actually prohibiting cars to travel through the inner city, is just going to make the périphérique worse and worse.
The policy of the city fails to acknowledge one very important information : People who needs to go through Paris, are not necessarly from Paris, nor in the ability to use something else than their car for professional reasons.
Paris is surrounded by a huge suburb of dozens of cities. For many people, the emphasis put on bikes, and the new laws banning certain cars, is a major step back in terms of practicality.
Thank you, that was really interesting! great introducing to this topic :)
I think many don't like what the mayor is doing to the city.
What these videos and more generally Cycling enthusiasts forget is that not everyone and every situation is compatible with biking. I live in Paris and Hidalgo’s project made life hard for me for 3 reasons :
1) I have babies and with babies you often need a car to move around, I don’t see myself biking with them
2) my father is handicapped and we used to get around Paris by car when he came. He doesn’t want to come anymore cause he’s stuck and can’t move.
Anyway I fully understand that we should use bikes more but the car is still needed in some cases
3) Good luck when you buy a heavy item like a fridge or a couch, you can’t anymore rent a truck and park below your building. Same when you move appartements it has become a nightmare
Last time I ordered something heavy (washing machine) the company that I bought it from brought it to my house and installed it. 👍
@@StefanRink companies already started refusing to deliver in some neighbourhood of Paris cause they can’t access with their trucks
@@zaydalaoui9397 Oh, yeah that's bad design. At least here in The Netherlands we don't have that problem. (unless you living on a really small street.
@@StefanRink It's not everywhere but it's growing. For example Hidalgo wants to transform all the center into a walk only area, so how are people going to get deliveries... I have mixed feelings about this.
@@zaydalaoui9397 Montpellier and most of france's city have walk only area and it's not a problem, residents and deliveries got access to this area when they wanted to. I think and i hope it will be the same design in Paris.
Great video about induced traffic & traffic evaporation...
so why are these two key concepts not mentioned once in the whole video, did i miss anything? 😅
I'm in Paris now and I noticed a big difference in the situation of 2 years ago. Now, I think, that the bicycles are more than cars! There are a lot of cycling paths, many of them are separated. There are a lot of parking for bicycles. This make easy moving by bike. And you see bicycles everywhere.
Besides there are at least 4 bike sharing systems, of which Velib is the best. Most of the deliveries are made by electric cargo bikes.
Let's hope to see a 100% bikes city within 2026.
This is a demonstration that political and public participation can make miracles!
I can’t believe Paris doesn’t have rain,snow,sleet! Sounds like an amazing place to live 🤔
Paris rarely have snow. They do have rain and sleet but guess what? You can bike on snow, in rain, sleet! Just wear the proper gears.
What has been the effect towards retail and hotel/restaurant/bar turnover by cutting back car traffic. Has it increased or has it decreased? Has anyone numbers?
No proper numbers are available but according to what I know I guessed it had a bad impact on their sales. First example is the Galleries Lafayette selling the BHV Marais (on rue de Rivoli) because sales decreased recently. It might be an impact of removing cars and making the access to this place more difficult (it takes sometimes 1 hour to drive here from one side of Paris and park). Also, when they changed circulation plans in the Marais, many shopowners feared that they would get less sales (look on local media Bfm Paris)
As a Parisian I don't understand why we don't just prohibit personal cars altogether, allowing cars only for taxis/public services/small businesses/disabled people etc. I see so many people get around Paris in a car just because they feel to fancy to get in the metro with everybody else
ouais t'es bien un parisien mdrr
Paris didn't have a choice: the air pollution problem was getting of hand, for starters. What they did was essentially add a whole bunch of surface tram systems to supplement the Paris Metro subway and RER commuter rail systems.
Yeah but the 14 tram lines are all outside (or on the immediate border) of the core city, aka "intra-muros" or "Paris proper".
The cycling revolution is massive, with the implementation of RER V (for velo = bicycle) and Velopolitain. Both are major cycling path networks with "lines" roughly following the rail based public transportation system they take their names from.
On top of that there's the crazy humongous Grand Paris Express project advancing a lot : it's a gigantic expansion of the subway, effectively doubling the length of the current network by adding 4 new fully automated lines with high frequency service (and high capacity for the new M15).
Out of the 4 new lines, namely M15, M16, M17 and M18, there will be a huge loop line (75km / 47mi) circling the core city at a distance, exclusively in the suburbs.
They are now expecting a minimum of 3 millions of additional daily riders thanks to the new GPE (or GPX) expansion.
There are also massive extensions to existing lines (M11 to the East in two stages, the first one opening this year and M14 with a little extension to the North and a very large extension to the South, down to Orly airport, opening in 2024 before the Olympics).
90% of the new lines comprised in the Grand Paris Express project are deep underground.
In preparation for the Olympics, major cycling paths are being reinforced both in seclusion and layout.
The plan is to move a very substantial number of attendees to the various events by bike, alongside public transportation.
They are developing large guarded bike parks, increasing the number of city bike rentals, etc.
It will be the "most cycled Olympics" to date.
And they intend on keeping everything as is for after the games.
The recent tram lines are far from being the main part of the change. To be fair, the tram extensions that are either being built or planned will have more impact than the currently existing lines.
Not even 10s in that video and the Rue de Rivoli depicted on the map is in fact Boulevard Hausmann and several others, which are often jammed with thermic vehicles. There is little to no cafe on the riverside of the Seine, aka "bords de Seine". And the beaches "Paris plage" are temporary during summer months.
Thanks for sharing!
Bicycle are definitevely not the one and only answer to urban traffic problems. A bicycle may be a good choice for younger people, but come winter time, the situation drastically changes. We need a balnce mix out of private and public transport, including individual mobility for all generations.
We need mass transit!! That's What's important.
Yes, BUT if more bikes are on the road and less cars, then people with reduced mobility (not really an age issue only) can take Uber/taxis/public transit on quieter roads. Bikes take millions, if not billions of car trips off the road every year around the world.
Well yes except those revolutions already happened in Paris, you can't reinvent the metro three times !
What they are doing in Paris is definitely impressive but I doubt it can be a template for most other cities in the world. Paris was primed for this development for two reasons:
First of all it already had a world-class public transport system with trams, metro, and buses connecting everything with everything else. There was already a very good alternative to driving before they even started with the bike infrastructure.
Secondly there is Haussmann's legacy. Nice wide boulevards with broad sidewalks running straight through the city means that there is room for bike paths where they need to share with cars and public transport. Most European cities with their previously walled in centres don't have that. So where Dutch cities like Amsterdam needed to disentangle (ontvlechten) because there just isn't enough room on most roads Paris doesn't need to do that.
It also means most of Paris is pleasant to be in with nice architecture(*) and enough green. A safe cycle path through an ugly concrete crevice between anonymous high rise still sucks after all. Paris is gorgeous to be in, why rush through it?
(*Understatement of the year award please....)
Enough green?
They are trying to massively increase the green part because Paris is highly mineral and extremely dense.
The Haussmann boulevards are only the main arteries, the rest are quite narrow streets with little to no vegetation.
In most cases (overwhelmingly) they've taken car space, not sidewalk space, to create bike lanes.
Just like on the large "marechaux boulevards" encircling Paris' core, parallel to the "peripherique" ring road.
They've drastically reduced car space, often to only one lane, giving most of the space to an exclusive right-of-way for tram lines, a pair of bike lanes, while widening sidewalks.
Several major radial boulevards have been transformed from 2 or 3 car lanes per side to 1 car lane, a large double width lane for busses and 2 bike lanes.
Putting bike lanes on sidewalks is quite the exception in Paris, not the norm.
And when they did put bike lanes on sidewalks it was only because the state / government refused that the car lanes be reduced too much for military / security reasons.
What Paris or Barcelona did and are doing is very much applicable in other cities, only slightly adapted to the local specificity.
Before the changes, many in Paris and around also thought that it wouldn't be possible and way too problematic.
It wasn't easy at all, it required efforts and adaptation but they stood by it and it worked.
Like it could work in many many many other cities if only they were brave enough to try it with enough will and commitment.
The "yeah but Paris is different, it's easier for them" is a bad excuse on top of being simply wrong.
Creating a bike lane network following the RER (regional express metro) network, from one end of the agglomeration to the other was and still is not easy but they're doing it, against local officials kicking and screaming if needed.
Doubling the length of the metro network with an absolutely humongous metro expansion (Grand Paris Express project) is extremely costly and extremely difficult, but they're doing it.
Barcelona has implemented super-blocks and continues to do so, Paris did its version following Barcelona's example, it was complicated and met with strong opposition, but they did it and keep doing it.
Effectively closing one major axis like Rivoli to private cars was not easy but they did it.
Drastically reducing traffic and sometimes suppressing it entirely in school streets was very difficult, but they did it.
The list goes on and on.
No one is expecting a one to one application of what did Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen or Paris in other cities.
But at least a bold stance and a commitment to effectively change things and implement adapted versions. But not "too adapted" to the point where it doesn't change anything meaningful.
It has to hurt a bit or it doesn't have enough impact : things must change, car use must reduce and gentle nudges or nice incentives don't work enough.
At some point there must be a real hindrance to private cars' mobility to effectively kickstart the switch towards public transportation and soft mobility.
One important thing clearly mentioned in Barcelona : cars are now only guests in the streets belonging to Barcelonians, not the other way around.
0:29 streets that used to be full of people, that were invaded by and dominated by cars, are finally returned to the people.
In Italy bike lanes are a total waste of Money and space: streets full of unpracticable bike lanes not used at all, but still under construction every where