I had a dream: Paris without a car

Transport and new transport: energy, pollution, engine innovations, concept car, hybrid vehicles, prototypes, pollution control, emission standards, tax. not individual transport modes: transport, organization, carsharing or carpooling. Transport without or with less oil.
laurent_caen
I understand econologic
I understand econologic
posts: 113
Registration: 07/05/06, 12:41

I had a dream: Paris without a car




by laurent_caen » 21/02/12, 23:47

The more time passes, the more I observe the city, the more I am interested in the quality of life, the more I wonder about what can improve it, and the more I meet ... the car, or rather the no car ...
Not being technophobic, anti-progress, or even anti-car, I come more and more to the conclusion that the use of the car is a big factor of poor quality of life in large cities by multiple aspects !
Without wanting the death of the car, I think it would be interesting to become aware of all the implications and consequences that its immoderate use in the city entails ...

1) Invasion of public space for the use of private individual property ...
Even if it tends to fall (and we must rejoice), the number of public parking spaces outside Paris is very important: 154 100 (source: http://www.paris.fr/pratique/voirie-cha ... 2_port_653 )
At the rate of 10 m² per square meter (5mx2m), this represents more than 1,5 km² or nearly 1,5% of the area of ​​Paris (105 km²), and even close to 2% if we except the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes . When we know the land pressure that there is in Paris, we can think that this is far from negligible! And I do not count the surface of the roads, sometimes 3 even 4 ways (Champs-Elysees avenue that would certainly be one of the most beautiful in the world without a car but which is to my taste the most horrible with all this traffic now) .
It is sometimes difficult to walk on narrow sidewalks, filled with storefronts, bus shelters, fire hydrants, parked scooters, traffic lights, anti-parking posts ... And beside that, what do you find: a whole line of parked cars, whose width equals or exceeds that of the sidewalk.
I see these cars parked all day, do not move ... And during this time, pedestrians galera!
In a way, it's as if I decided to leave an entire sofa in the street, to come and lie down from time to time, if not not touch, it's my sofa, and during that time he's squatting in the street! "
Afterward, my thoughts drifted. Looking at my street and my neighborhood, I said to myself "If we removed everything related to the car, how would the space be?"
Mentally, so I removed:
- the cars parked on the parking spaces, certainly, but also:
- signs (often planted in the middle of the sidewalk)
-the wild anti-parking bollards and barriers (which reduce the useful width of the sidewalk a little)
- the timestamps
- pavements reserved only for cars
- parking entrances and exits
- service stations
When we add up all this, we realize how huge it is!
It is ultimately useless to pester shopkeepers, cyclists ...
80% of the place in the street is devoted to the car ...
2) Social isolation in his neighborhood
Who likes to walk around, meet people, chat, shop in the noise and stench, on the side of a busy road, on a sidewalk where you have to tighten?
No one ! So too much traffic leads people to stay locked up at home ...
Some studies have proven the connection between the number of friends, dating you have in your neighborhood and the density of cars and roads.
- children who do not have too much place to play outside, to spend themselves ..
3) Pollution and diseases
Auto pollution kills as much, if not more than accidents ...
Leukemia, cancers, studies show a link.
The limit value not to be exceeded due to health impact is 40 micro g per m3.
We are between 85 and 115. These micro-particles penetrate deeply into the airways.
For Paris, 40% of the particles are emitted by the transport. Source http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particules_en_suspension
France (like other countries) has been pinned by Europe on this issue because overtaking since 2005. (Pollution alert on site Breathe the device)
4) Accidents on the road
Curiously, a ton of steel launched at 50 km / h is more dangerous than a cyclist at 30 km / h, especially for other ...
5) Noise
Undergoing road noise, in one's dwelling, leads to mental fatigue.
In opinion polls on the quality of life, the first source of nuisance reported (and by far!) Is the noise generated by car traffic.

6) Cuts and lengthening of commuter travel time
If in a low-density environment, the car can reduce distances, it is not the same in large cities and Paris in particular: not only is the car on average less fast than cycling, but all those who practice the bike in this city know that it is precisely the cars that slow down the bikes!
Are the roads really fast? They eventually make you arrive faster to a place, for once arrived, go more slowly (and I do not speak of traffic jams, time to park ...).
This notwithstanding:
- the lack of sports activity of motorists stuck in their car
- pollution for motorists in their car (they breathe more than residents)
- the stress of driving
- the loss of the beauty of the city, the aesthetic impact of the roads and places too made for the car: imagine for a single second the avenue des champs Elysées without motor vehicles and without noise ... Moreover, it would become possible in this case to green this avenue to make it even more beautiful, because the 6 8 (the avenue is roughly as wide as a highway !!!) roads would become superfluous).
Finally, and this is the main reason, it seems to me that Paris intra-muros is particularly well suited to a lack of cars. If there is a city in which it would be ultra beneficial in many ways to restrict the use of the car, it is Paris, because of its characteristics:
- dense city: the distances traveled are usually very low so much everything is at hand,
- small area: pedaling slowly, we go from one end to the other of Paris in less than 45 minutes by bike and certainly in less time if we prohibit car traffic, as it slows down the bikes .
- The shape of "potato" Paris intramural is a considerable asset to restrict traffic, I explain: the danger when prohibiting cars in a city is to have a postponement of traffic periphery; now, given the shape of Paris, when you're in the northern suburbs and you want to go to the southern suburbs, or when you're in the western suburbs and you want to go to the is, we do not enter Paris but we bypass the city by the ring road (in the vast majority of cases, I do not say that it's always exactly like that), so that the postponement of traffic in the suburbs would be almost negligible.

The perception of the city by its inhabitants would be completely changed, and we would suffer more (or much less) that sensation of suffocation that any inhabitant of Paris could feel one day. For if the city is undeniably very dense, it must be emphasized that its perception is quite subjective; remove all vehicles and restrict car traffic and the inhabitants will have a much less dense, less stifling vision of the city! The advantages offered by a city like Paris in terms of possibility of activity, without the inconveniences in summary!

It would of course be necessary, to allow many suburban residents to go to Paris (for their work or their hobbies), to build many car parks at the outlets and at subway, RER and bus stations outside Paris. These stations should be linked to self-service bicycle stations and also to (monitored) car parks for personal bicycles; thus, users would have the choice to finish their journey, either by bike or by public transport.

Of course, it would be essential to allow traffic to certain categories of users, it goes from: ambulances, taxis, deliveries ...

While certainly banning car traffic will certainly not that benefits for everyone, but overall, it seems to me that there are ENORMOUS more advantages than disadvantages! Moreover, let us do the opposite reasoning: imagine that Paris has always been banned from motor vehicles and that suddenly the public authorities decide to allow them: no one would accept this, especially the residents who would consider this measure as a madness! The acceptance of motor vehicles in dense cities is the result of the fact that it is an integral part of people's daily lives.

Anyway, at the time of the establishment of this c ... autolib ', this is a dream ... But who knows, with a barrel of oil regularly rising, in a while ...
0 x
Christophe
Moderator
Moderator
posts: 79112
Registration: 10/02/03, 14:06
Location: Greenhouse planet
x 10972

Re: I had a dream: Paris without a car




by Christophe » 17/09/18, 09:58

I raise this subject since Hidalgo dreams of a European day without a car ...

And a little reminder:

0 x

 


  • Similar topics
    Replies
    views
    Last message

Back to "New transport: innovations, engines, pollution, technologies, policies, organization ..."

Who is online ?

Users browsing this forum : Google Adsense [Bot] and 187 guests