I had read all the stories. I had even written a few myself. In just five years, Paris’s cycling modal share has doubled, from 5 percent of all trips in 2020 to 11 percent in 2025. That’s mostly thanks to a total of 870 miles of bike lanes, about half of them installed over the past decade. But now that I’m here, I feel like it’s my duty to tell you the transformation that’s occurred is even more dramatic than described. Since I’ve biked all around Paris for a total of three full days — which clearly makes me an expert — I can say this with confidence: Paris has made space for cyclists in a way that I simply have not seen in any other city.
And here’s my extremely hot take: biking in Paris might be even more convenient than walking.
That’s saying a lot coming from me, a professional Walker™.
Just wait until the author visits the Netherlands!
It’s awesome seeing cities shift towards being more bike friendly. Driving sucks. It’s dangerous, slow, and cars take up so much space that you inevitably end up with congestion. If more of the US were friendly to other transportation methods, I think we’d see cities become significantly safer to live in.
I think the thing with paris is that it converted a non cyclist city into one. netherlands AfAIK did that 40 years ago. people assume it was always that way.
plenty of people claim transforming a modern city is impossible and Paris is the proof that it is not
This would be VERY applicable to several cities, sure, but most big cities don’t house everybody. Chicago gets busy because people commute into the city for work, and I’m sorry but I’m not biking 15-20 miles each way for a job. For those who live downtown or within walking distance, also a great option. The sidewalks are more than accommodating as are many streets. Honestly, it would be cool to convert some of the narrower streets to bike or pedestrian only.
Also, now a huge chunk live in rural America which is definitely not walkable or ridable. But I know outside the city(s), many towns have their own parks or forest preserve type spaces where is nice to exercise there. But when several states are there size of European countries, it puts some of that into perspective. Illinois has numerous “big(ish) cities” separated by 100s of miles. Same goes for Indiana, OH, MO, TN, KY, etc.
As much as it would be awesome to be less dependent, it’s just not viable in most places.
I would encourage you to see how other countries handle things. At least in NL, there are trains and busses too, and you can do all three if you want (train, bus, and bike). It’ll still be faster to commute by all three of those from halfway across the country than it is for most people to drive to San Francisco every morning (I know the SF commute, not the Chicago one).
Rural areas in all countries I’ve visited (which is a lot) pretty much require cars. There’s usually a train stop somewhat nearby, but you’d just drive where you need to go.
But when several states are there size of European countries, it puts some of that into perspective.
The size has never really been the issue. Suburbs aren’t the size of an entire state, and cities (okay. ignoring Texas) aren’t the size of European countries on their own. The issue is a lack of funding for alternative transportation methods.
Amtrack is dogshit. I don’t think anyone, even in the US, debates that. Now imagine Amtrack, but it’s a high speed rail that stops at the station every 30m or so. Also, it goes to every city in the country. Now you have a good public transportation system, and it’d be on par with some of the worst public transportation I’ve seen in Europe.
What you would do is you would take your bike on the train. In theory any Ada accessible transit system can support this and many explicitly go out of their way to encourage the synergy. Some don’t and that should be something we try to fix but you don’t ride a bike 15 mi, you ride a bike 1 mi, get on a train, get off the train and ride 2 mi. Or maybe you don’t even need to ride that far if you’re lucky
While I agree with the better idea of a train, I will play a little devil’s advocate: I hate my job (as do many of us here) and the time it takes away from my personal life and family… my 35-40 minute commute turns into a 15 minute bike ride, plus 45 minute train ride, and then biking the last bit of distance another 10ish minutes. Now, my 1:20 max commute turns into 2 hours, an extra 40 minis away from home a day or 3:20 a week.
Yes, cars are big, expensive, dangerous, etc. But there’s a convenience to having a personal vehicle. So many cities and suburbs are built and designed around cars. I’m not saying this is how it should be, but it’ll take about a 100 years to undo the 120+Yeats of it gradually getting this way.
I’ll end with this thought-and let’s hope to GOD this doesn’t catch on!! Everyone agrees to start walking, biking, and taking public transportation more, and the number of personally owned vehicles drops dramatically. Now, families want to vacation, go camping, go sight seeing, visit family, etc. How do you do that? Take all your stuff down to the local bus stop, then to a train, then back to a bus or taxi to get you the last few miles, all while lugging your stuff along?? What of a family has little kids or a baby? What about in an emergency situation? (Here’s what I hate:) If people decide to rent a car for those occasions, the number of vehicles sold will shift to rental companies vs people, and we’ll see another dramatic shift in additional “rent but never own” “blank as A Service” kind of offerings. Prices to rent will creep just as all other subscriptions do, and soon enough you can’t even afford to visit your dying grandmother because it’ll be to expensive. OK that last bit might be too far dystopian, but I wouldn’t put it passed them (billionaires) to try it!
Subscriptions are already creeping into those sectors regardless of any modality preference shift in the public, so why deny yourself and others of an experience that has been proven to improve human wellness and reduce pollution?
So I pose this: the less than half of your commute extra that you’d spend on a bike to get to your destination thing – if you’ve never tried it as a direct comparison to a car commute (with the big caveat that it should be a safe biking journey so that the comparison is fair), you really can’t say that it won’t work or it’s not convenient for work, even for vacations. Speaking from personal experience, it caused a massive improvement in my mental health. I would say please remain open to the idea, coming from someone who was skeptical and ended up in just a few months picking up a full grocery haul on the regular when I could on our cargo e bikes. You can kit them out like crazy for a fraction of the cost of car maintenance, and yes we went year round, rain and snow. The only thing that changed is we moved so we’re in a food desert and now need our one car for that.
I hear being with family is a priority, but bringing them on the bikes with you when you can means that you spend time together, get exercise, and have a completely different and more positive experience with a commute.
Now for the reality check - this is all predicated on having access to safe, separate biking infrastructure, of which is a local policy choice, not out of reach so long as there is public support. If we advocate for this change, those driving cars lose nothing, and we as a society stand to benefit in all ways.
Just wait until the author visits the Netherlands!
i took the author to mean the remarkable thing was about the pivoting from a car centric shitfest to cycling, not that it was better than say Utrecht. As she points out most cities build a little cycling infra , it’s mostly tokenism and nearly no one or only the hardcore uses it. Car drivers then say “see, no one cycles in our city” and feel vindicated in their stupidity and it never gets better from there.
Exactly. I guess reading comprehension really is a thing of the past, or maybe people just read headlines now?
