Empty streets in Paris are rare indeed, while much mainstream coverage is devoted to the assumed progressive measures taken there to reduce traffic snarls in France's capital city. The New York Times, for example, ran a story today about thebike rental system in Paris where you can now rent a bike at one of several-hundred self-service docking hubs (the number is supposed to increase to 20,600 by the end of the year). Meanwhile, the New York Times also published a story about how Mayor Bloomberg's measures to charge drivers' tools to enter congested Manhattan streets were shot down by New York state lawmakers in Albany.
It's amazing how progressive Paris' traffic planners are compared to their Manhattan counterparts, n'est-ce pas? But then again, would you really want to risk your life by riding a bike along a busy Parisian street, where even if there are fewer cars, you have to jostle for space against bus and truck drivers? During a "traffic free day" in 2004, Paris was officially off limit to cars, except for certain streets and emergency vehicles. Instead, the measure seemed to have created just more traffic jams that clogged most of the main streets with very angry drivers. Walking, much less riding a bike, seemed even more of a dangerous proposition compared to a normal day.
And as far as New York traffic goes, it actually ranks relatively low on the list compared to U.S. metropolitan areas in the U.S. In Paris, it is common to sit in your car for well over an hour just when trying to drive along the peripherique beltway around the city or going from point A to point B in Paris for fewer than 10 miles. Navigating through Manhattan, along the Cross Bronx or even through the Holland or Lincoln tunnels just doesn't seem to be as bad.
