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™.
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.