“Most people don’t enter Paris by car for pleasure,” adds Zembri. “These people are delivery drivers, shopkeepers, artisans. [By cracking down on cars] traffic won’t just evaporate. It will push the problems to the suburbs, where they don’t have a choice but to take the car because of the more limited transport options.”
Under Mayor Hidalgo, Paris has done as much as any city in the world to wage a war on cars amid a growing awareness of the damaging impact they have on cities.
Passenger cars emit huge amounts of pollution and are an inefficient use of finite public space. They are Europe’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the leading killer of children. Copenhagen has calculated that for each kilometer cycled by a resident, society reaps a benefit of €0.64 ($0.64), whereas each kilometer driven costs us €0.71 in impacts on health, safety and the environment.
But over recent years, Paris has implemented an array of measures to prioritize pedestrians, cyclists and transit while bringing car use screeching to a halt.
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Cars Are Vanishing from Paris
Peter Yeung
Peter Yeung is a Contributing Editor at Reasons to be Cheerful. A Paris-based journalist, he also writes for publications including the Guardian, the LA Times and the BBC. He’s filed stories from across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The share of journeys made by car in the city has fallen by nearly half, and the trend is only accelerating.
September 23, 2022 6 min read
The share of journeys made by car in the city has fallen by nearly half, and the trend is only accelerating.
September 23, 2022 6 min read
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