Light pollution is relatively easily solved, there's just not much will to do so. Noise pollution is best solved by reducing car-dependency which is a non-starter in most North American cities; I can't speak for Europe but I understand Paris to have undertaken a serious revolution in purging cars within the past decade.
> I understand Paris to have undertaken a serious revolution in purging cars within the past decade.
The issue is that they have mainly increased the friction of using cars in the city (reducing lanes, restricting parking, converting avenues to one-way) all the while the public transit enhancements are running late, and whatever lines were already there saw a drop in service quality.
So increasing density would require a major improvement in public transit. Note, however, that the city of Paris proper already has one of the highest densities in the world.
But what that doesn't mention: the bike sharing schemes are hit-and-miss. I usually commute each way a good hour before rush-hour traffic, so I have a good probability of finding a usable bike. But during rush hour? Fat chance.
Oh, you're going to point out that there's a scheme helping you purchase your own bike? Indeed. What are you going to do with it, though? At home, you may be able to find a spot to park in your flat (it's not my case). You wanna leave it outside? Sure, go ahead, if you don't care about finding it in one piece in the morning. Ditto for the other end of your commute.
There's also the fact that bike sharing schemes only work in Paris proper and adjacent towns. If you want to commute in from further away [0], you better be ready to ride in traffic and have your own bike, assuming you don't live that far. If you're lucky enough to live in one of the places served by the new metro, it's still not ready (but should be real soon now - fingers crossed).
So sure, having more dedicated bike lanes (and some of the new ones are actually physically separate from car lanes) is great. Although sometimes the layout is... puzzling? Bike lanes switching from the left to the right side of the roads, narrow two-way lanes (Bd Sébastopol), etc.
But I wouldn't exactly call it a "revolution" in practice. My commute goes from the east to the northwest of the city, around 7 km. Of these, only around 1 km is a bike lane separate from the traffic. And it's ridiculously narrow. Bonus points for it being painted with a slippery paint for some reason (look up Boulevard Magenta). The rest is half on bike lanes shared with a bus, the other half on regular roads with no bike lane at all.
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[0] Don't forget that Paris proper is home to ~2M people, while the Paris Region has ~12M.
The original post was complaining about increasing density and how investment in public transport hasn't kept up. The previous poster said what about bikes, and you are now saying that bikes are not a solution to people coming from the greater Paris region. But that was not what we are talking about, we were talking about higher density (=more people) in Paris proper. Bikes are certainly a solution to transport in the high density city.
Only part of my answer was about people coming in from afar. The other, about there being nowhere to store bikes, as well as questionable quality of the biking infrastructure is about the city itself.
Edit: I'm actually saying this as someone who enjoys and actually does bike. When living in the city proper, I think there are very few routes for which the bike isn't the quickest method of transportation. For my commute, which is pretty much a best-case scenario (modern metro with few to no issues, goes in a fairly straight line, don't have to change lines, stations close to both home and the office) the bike is much faster: 20 instead of 30 minutes.
Bike storage was never a problem for me living in London, even when I lived on a tiny canal boat. I can’t imagine Parisian’s bicycles are that different nor their homes much smaller than a boat or my 75m2 flat. Yes, I also have a cargo bike for transporting kids. The only thing stopping anyone from cycling is their anxiety and sense of car-owing identity
I was talking to a friend living in London, and it would indeed seem that flats tend to be bigger over there. We do have many 100+ m2 flats, don't get me wrong, it's just that most locals can't afford those and live in shoeboxes instead.
There's also the fact that the layout doesn't always lend itself to storing a bike, most flats being rather old. Even though I would technically have the surface area to store a bike, it'd have to be in an awkward place to avoid blocking the passages.
Some newer apartment buildings do have areas for storing bikes more or less securely. But I doubt that's the case for most people.
Instead, what I'm hopeful for, is that the local bike-sharing scheme will improve. And indeed, I've read a few weeks ago that they were rolling out some improved model, which they expect to be more robust.
One reason I don't get a bike here in Seattle is because bike theft is just way too common, and I have no way to secure it in my house (not enclosed garage, no space inside to keep it). It is funny, because they have better infrastructure now, but the theft problem (and lack of police/government care for the problem) means less people are actually riding bikes here.
People also generally don't arrive sweaty when biking (at least not more than those taking public transportation in the summer).
To avoid being sweaty: go slower to not over-exert yourself, wear less clothing (you might be a bit cold when starting your commute, but that's not a big deal), and if it's still not enough (not fit enough, hills, etc...), an electric-assisted bike might be the solution.
they don't; it's just not practical. You have to be relatively fit and energetic to do it every day, have no chores like kids pickup, have extra time on your hands, the weather has to be perfect - no rain or god forbid snow. This only works for a particular segment of working people out there.
It depends on the climate. If you live in California or west coast outside of rainy seasons, there really isn't much of a problem unless you have a huge hill to climb on the way to work. Actually, that was my problem in Lausanne (3D town, I road up the hill every morning, and would be a bit sweaty, but I had my own office so I didn't care).
Riding worked for a particular phase of my life, now it doesn't, since I have a kid to take care of and the bike theft problem has gotten out of control in my locale.
I live in Paris, I have 2 small kids, and I don't have much time on my hands (founder). I go to work (5km) by bike every day, whether it rains, snows, or worse ;)
Over a third of Dutch people cycle as their most frequent mode of transport. Over a quarter of all trips are on a bike. 49% of primary school students and 75% of secondary school students cycle to school.
Cycling has been a national priority for the Dutch, like the automobile has a been a priority for much of the rest of the developed world.
With e-bikes, fitness and terrain are less relevant than ever. Unsafe(car dominated) bike routes are the number one obstacle to increased cycling.
I’m not biking to work in -17C. I have walked to the bus (including through 50cm of snow in a raging blizzard) and driven in such temperature many times.
A quick search reveals that the average winter temperature in the Netherlands is above freezing, while average summer temperatures hover around 20C. Sounds positively delightful for biking. That’s not the case for much of North America.
Where I come from, generally in the Great Lakes region, the average temperatures range from -1C to 30C during the year. Not great for year-round commuting by bike. Some people do it, sure, but it is truly a commitment.
It helps that the Netherlands is mostly flat and has pretty good weather for it (I guess rain is kind of an issue). They also have awesome infrastructure and don't just expect cars to do the right thing (they actually design and redesign roads to make biking safe).
according to your own numbers, 64% of the Dutch don't use bicycle as their most frequent mode of transport. Meaning that bicycling doesn't work for the majority of population even when it is made a national priority. I'm all for it, but the numbers you've listed prove that it's simply not practical for most people in the best of times.
I'm not so sure that's an issue for the general population.
My main gripe is actually availability of bikes in the bike-sharing scheme, since I can't bring up my own in the office, and since I work in a shady area, there's no way I'd leave it outside for the day. I also like the flexibility of not having to use my bike both ways. Think catching a movie or whatever after work and possibly getting a drink with friends. Although this is related to not wanting to leave the bike unattended for any period of time.
But nowadays, with electric bikes, unless you live on top of Montmartre hill (and even then), I think it's no longer an issue. I have a colleague who takes her two children to school on bike before riding into the office (she works in a different office, where they have an interior yard with bike racks). Her bike's got electric assistance and she doesn't seem to arrive out of breath or anything. She also doesn't seem exceptionally sporty.
Everything only works for a particular segment of people, but you exaggerate how small this particular segment is.
You don’t need to be fit, just not entirely out of shape — or ride an ebike. You can easily do chores, get groceries, etc. on a bike. I take my kid to school in a cargo bike regularly. It’s faster than driving (at rush hour at least) because there’s no stoplights on the bike path. And rain gear is a thing.
It’s not for everyone but haters always claim it’s for no one. No, it’s just not for you, stop being a hater.
I have biked to work over 30 years in various places. Some with uphill in the morning. The point is just that you bike comfortably. When I was younger that probably meant something like 18 km/h in sligthly hilly places. Nowadays it's less. You can actually debug your code while biking (mentally, no screen involved). I have solved many problems after 15 minutes on the bike better than in 3 hours in front of the screen. Yes, I avoid heavy traffic, even if it means a detour.
If you want to bike fast you can do it when not on the way to the office.
(I once biked in Dallas at 95F. There not getting sweaty might be a challenge...)
The same is happening in the UK. They've made car travel harder without making public transport any better (outside of London), which has just lowered the average person's productivity rather than making any headway into tackling the core issue of people getting from A to B quicker, cheaper, with less pollution.
They put in some heavy traffic restrictions in my local city of Oxford by closing off residential roads, forcing all traffic down "arterial" roads instead and putting parking restrictions all over the place. A year later, there are no fewer cars on the road or increased public transport usage; some local studies by the university confirmed that. People just spend more time stuck in traffic travelling longer distances.
It's like having a person with an injured leg and a missing one. Instead of giving the person a prosthesis to remove the load, they've just lopped the other off altogether, leaving them to crawl from place to place instead of hobble.
> [car travel harder without making public transport better]
Erm aren't you forgetting something?
London just quadrupled its bicycle network. That seems like a massive improvement to me. When I lived there, biking was...let's be kind and say "less than ideal". Last time I visited I was amazed by the improvement, with protected two-way bike lanes right on the Thames and much more.
I feel like the best way to make getting from A to B quicker is for A and B to be closer together. Which makes walking or biking more practical and you don’t have to spend as much money on public transit.
Only when the distances are greater than short-walk distance. Cars take up (huge amounts of) space at their destination by parking. You can only push two destinations so close together before their parking lots merge.
Only to a point, because car trips have more “friction” especially in a city.
For example, you might need to spend some time getting to/from the car or wending your way through a parking structure. You may need to drive a more circuitous route due to one-way streets—-and certainly can’t cut through a park or building. You don’t need fuel/charging or maintenance every trip but it amortizes out to a small delay. And there’s traffic!
Anecdotally, a 15 minute walk (~1 mile) is probably about the break-even point. My spouse and I both went that far yesterday, one in a car and one walking, and yet we both got home at almost exactly the same time.
If you increase density, you should be avoiding the need to improve public transit, as more people will be closer to their destination than it's worth driving to.
For the same population increase, less density means people have to travel farther to get to their destination. More people travelling farther necessitates more public transit
Suppose that you have a grid-like road network across an area of 100 square miles, where intersecting roads go north-south and east-west and roads are half a mile apart. If you want to get from one corner of the square to the adjacent one, you have to travel 10 miles. If there are a million people doing this, you have ten million vehicle miles.
Now suppose you compress this many people into an area of 25 square miles, where the roads are still half a mile apart. Now the distance along one of the edges is 5 miles and the same million people only have to travel 5 million miles. But now instead of having 400 miles of roads (10/0.5 * 10 on each axis), you have 100 miles of roads (5/0.5 * 5 * 2), so each road has twice as many cars, or each bus has to carry twice as many passengers or whatever.
This is why mass transit works in cities and not in the suburbs. In a city you have enough passengers to fill the bus or subway car, in the suburbs you don't. But if you increase the density without putting in any mass transit, you just get more traffic.
On the other hand, the people who say we can't increase density until we build mass transit are full of crap. You can add a bus route in a day, you just buy a bus and hire a driver. In urban areas subways are generally more efficient, and those take time to build, but you can run a bus until the subway is built. It's no excuse to hold up housing construction.
You can't assume that the number of cars is a constant though. As point A and point B become farther apart, car usage goes up. When they become closer together, car usage scales down.
But as point A and point B become closer together, it takes less time to get there by car and then people do it more often. Unless traffic congestion eats the time savings, implying that there is high traffic congestion.
Cities are populated by people, not cars. As point A and point B become closer, people are less likely to drive.
If your mailbox is attached to your house, you can lean out your front door to get your mail. If your mailbox is at the end of your 20 foot driveway, you take a few steps to get your mail. If you live on a farm, and your mailbox is down a several hundred yard driveway, you might hop in your side-by-side UTV. If your mail goes to a Post Office Box in town, you might hop in your truck and pick it up while running errands.
If things that had been a 10 minute drive become a 5 minute drive, now they're worth it when before they weren't. You go to the shop instead of waiting 2 days for Amazon. You go to the shop you like more instead of the one you like less even though the lesser one is closer, because now the difference isn't as big.
There's a finite number of trips people can practically do - just because they live next door to work doesn't mean they'll commute more than twice each day (close enough people will return for home for lunch perhaps).
As traffic and travel times lessen, people do travel further and more, but only to a point.
But who was contending otherwise? You don't need it to be infinite, to be a problem all it has to do is not allow the reduction in driving because now distances are shorter and sometimes people can walk to not exceed the increase in density because now four times as many people are in the same area. Which it might not have done even without this, depending on how much more often shorter distances cause people to walk.
That is unfortunate but realistically there's never going to be a political overhaul of that scale where all moves are perfectly synced. As long as they're actually working on the transit enhancements it seems completely acceptable to me (in the abstract; I'm not a Parisian)
yeah, make sure you move out of the city and go run hiding in the countryside somewhere
if you stay in the city, the globalists WILL come for you, they WILL put you in 15 minute cities where everything you need is easily available within walking, bicycling or high quality transit distance (oh no!)
Lol. I'm not worried. I just it's funny think it's funny how people live to line up on the side of the unelected global governance system and think that voting matters and believe everything they were taught in school/on TV etc.
"I'm choosing to give up my car, and you will choose that too!"
yeah, the default mode of human transportation is to drive a single occupancy private automobile, for every trip, everywhere, including in dense urban environments, and anyone who thinks otherwise is brainwashed by the globalists
if you prefer walking, riding a bike or transit you're so brainwashed! wake up and listen to the truth the automobile and fossil fuel industries are trying to get out there!
But I didn't say any of that. Walk or ride - do whatever you like. But in the new world, one option will have been removed - driving. I'm not cheering the loss of that. I'm for free choice. You seem to be arguing in favour of removing other peoples' choices. And you think that's right! Who made you (or the Paris mayor) king/queen of the world?
I'm also saying, artificially creating issues by removing roads, making them one way etc, in order to create terrible traffic, in order to then justify removing cars completely, is a form of manipulative abuse, being inflicted on people by government. I'm not going to cheer abusive behaviour.
I fundamentally disagree with every single word and every thought that led you there
> Walk or ride - do whatever you like. But in the new world, one option will have been removed - driving. I'm not cheering the loss of that. I'm for free choice. You seem to be arguing in favour of removing other peoples' choices. And you think that's right! Who made you (or the Paris mayor) king/queen of the world?
Akshully it's all other modes of transportation that have been exterminated by the private single occupancy automobile. Cities levelled and the entire planet polluted to make way for it, and walking, cycling and transit made not just unsafe and unpleasant but literally impossible and illegal, and everyone forced to pay insane amounts to subsidize roads that don't make any profit. Thankfully, in Paris and a handful of other cities, leaders are recognizing this and working on making walking, riding a bike and transit legal, safe and enjoyable again. So if you and other ardent motorists want to continue to exercise your free choice to drive, you will no longer be able to do so at the expense of everyone else, you will have to pay your fair share for roads and parking and accept that all space no longer belongs to you by default.
> I'm also saying, artificially creating issues by removing roads, making them one way etc, in order to create terrible traffic, in order to then justify removing cars completely, is a form of manipulative abuse, being inflicted on people by government. I'm not going to cheer abusive behaviour.
Roads create traffic and viable alternatives to driving reduces it. Any child, idiot or PhD urban planner and traffic engineer can tell you this.
> Roads create traffic and viable alternatives to driving reduces it. Any child, idiot or PhD urban planner and traffic engineer can tell you this.
So, in the past, the governance structure used taxes to install roads and encourage car use.. (ie they were children, idiots and bereft of PhD urban planners).
But now, it's using taxes to remove roads and discourage car use.
How sage they are, not idiotic at all. Go go government! Double helpings please!
Yes, some actions have bad outcomes and some good.
Are you saying everything the government does objectively makes life worse? Then you should be furious about driving anyway, because the government effectively forced you into it.
Yes. I think government was acting immorally back then, far exceeding whatever people required and acting in support of powerful interests (petrol companies, industry). Now it is far, far worse, with government seeking a level of micro management and control over people that is abhorrent to me - control of travel, energy, water, money, location, etc.
And amazingly, most people want it! Because they have been mis-educated by this immoral institution. They want to force others into this or that action, not because those others have done something wrong, but because they are convinced of an idea and think it is ok to use force to get their preference. It's a sort of tyranny in the name of 'morality', only the moral element of 'do no harm' is ignored.
The recalcitrant will be helped whether they want it or not!
Kindly explain how "not having 90% of public surface area in a dense city dedicated to 1 mode of transport, the automobile" is tyranny. If anything the elimination of everything else as a mode of transport (by not having safe paths for people walking or cycling, as well as subpar public transport) is the true tyranny here.
It's true what they say: for those accustomed to privilege anything else is an assault.
The mayor enjoys high levels of public approval for her pedestrianisation and cyclability projects (and so do dozens of other aediles undertaking similar projects in the past few years throughout Europe), so I'm not sure what's your point here.
I also can't really figure out the logic of a conspiracy theory that equates "car (purchase + license + insurance + fuel) = freedom" and "bikes (300$ + strong legs) = slavery", but hey
The purging has really picked up pace in the last couple of years, and I think a major highlight will be the upcoming cleansing of Place de la Concorde.
Hear hear! Anytime someone argues something like "I could never give up my car and live in a city! They're so noisy!" I feel like a version of that Goose meme. "NOISY FROM WHAT?"
More of this, it's fun - when you don't live there: trams running on insanely poorly designed, or maintained tracks, trams running on extremely squeally wheels (see design, maintenance), sirens (running on overtime and at full strength, see screaming people), preachers (see screaming people :-), protests (The birds aren't real!), drummers, motorcycles ("Harleys"), dirt bikes (kids). In San Francisco, cars are the well behaved and quiet group in there.
Sirens: valid. But those suckers are usually attached to vehicles
People yelling: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when someone is yelling, it's some doofus in a car yelling at some other doofus in a car.
Loud music: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when there is loud music, it's some doofus playing loud music in their car.
Construction: valid
But the single most frequent / annoying loud sound: car horns. Constantly.
I'm not going to argue the point that cars aren't loud they are!
However, in Manhattan the city is still very loud with 0 cars. Meaning in the middle of the night in midtown, not a single car, the city itself hums with a constant noise that is not healthy.
Witnessed this during covid when I didn't see a car for hours on a typically busy midtown avenue, but the city is still very very loud compared to a suburban setting.
So, we get rid of all cars, then what? You still live in a noisy city. No thanks.
Credentials: 5 years in midtown, 15 years downtown Manhattan.
With all respect, “didn’t see a car for hours on a typically busy midtown avenue”, even during peak covid, is bananas if for no other reason than the ambulances were going almost constantly (ymmv based on where you live).
But I distinctly remember watching the odd car here and there and wondering where they were going.
And things were quieter! There was the background noise of machinery and buses and cars but it was a lot quieter than even holiday Sundays.
Credentials: 14 years in semi-rural Texas, 25 years in Manhattan
Living in Texas and Manhattan you should aware that we very good at adapting to our surroundings. The relative noise is not comparable between rural Texas and Manhattan.
I agree the city was quieter during covid, and would be quieter without cars. It's ridiculous to debate otherwise.
But a major is vastly noisier without cars than any normal suburb with the rare car passing by a residential street.
It varies by area; I remember staying in Brooklyn with a friend and being a few floors up the traffic noise was minimal (constant), few horns, but it seemed an emergency vehicle went by every few minutes.
Most of what I remember of European cities, too, when anywhere near the denser parts.
Part of "city noise" is dependent where you're living, and how new it is. Close, cramped, older building with people arguing above and below and beside you? Not fun. Newer building with excellent soundproofing? Nowhere near as bad.
> Sirens: valid. But those suckers are usually attached to vehicles
But they're attached to emergency vehicles. The fire department is not going to wait for the bus when responding to a fire, so you can't actually get rid of this by installing mass transit, and then its prevalence is proportional to density.
> People yelling: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when someone is yelling, it's some doofus in a car yelling at some other doofus in a car.
> Loud music: not often in my experience. And the usual offender when there is loud music, it's some doofus playing loud music in their car.
If people are usually in cars then the people making noise will usually be in cars. But it's not as if they're going to stop having business disputes or lovers' quarrels or whatever it is this time just because they're on foot.
And whether loud music is a problem depends primarily on who your neighbors are. In a city you'll have a lot of them and you don't get to choose who they are.
> car horns
Ironically this doesn't happen in the suburbs because there are more roads and parking per car, and thereby fewer traffic disputes and no need to summon someone from a building immediately instead of parking and going inside. So you're now equally making the case for cities to have wider roads and more parking.
