The Difference Between Paris With and Without Cars
How removing cars changes what a city feels like
I wish I could find the words to describe the feeling.
But the thing is I didn’t even expect to feel the magnitude of the difference so strongly between the parts of Paris with cars and the parts of Paris without them. Or the parts with “normal” levels of auto traffic versus the parts with little to none.
It’s funny what we’ve decided to accept as normal in society. Especially in the United States where we—or is it they now—equate bustling urban environments with traffic congestion.
Suggest ways to reduce or eliminate motor vehicles, and people in the US freak out. Businesses rely on false intuition that fewer automobiles will lead to decreased sales. Residents—honestly, I don’t know what their problem is. But a large enough majority of people in the country to matter come up with an endless funnel of lamebrain excuses as to why pedestrian environments are a bad idea—except those of the novelty variety that you drive to, enjoy for the day, then pull back into your driveway after a 30-minute “ride.”
None of this is to say that everyone was in favor of how Paris radically flipped the script on cars. After decades of dominance and destruction, it’s funny to watch spurned car drivers play the victim as the city effectively looked them straight in the eyes and told them to go fuck themselves. More on that specifically later this month.
But—bottom line—Paris went to a much-needed extreme to remove cars, reduce traffic, drastically cut pollution, and exponentially increase enjoyment throughout large swaths of the city. And it’s not done yet.
I touched on bits and pieces last month, but this is one of the most recent stories of what happened there in case you missed it.
It’s nothing short of incredible and inspiring in the sense that it shows what’s possible.
Anywhere. Even in the United States.
That’s really what I want us all to take away from this post—that no matter how shitty things seem and how nobody seems to want to use their legislative and other types of power for the greater good, it can happen. And that’s super important because, as I noted last time: In the end, it’s really the core question this newsletter asks—where’s the best place for me to live and why now and in the future?
And none of this is a cue to pull out the laundry list that leads with Europe is small and old/the US is big and young so you can’t… whatever. Those are not even excuses. They’re empty claims because any semblance of truth in those statements connects loosely, if at all to what we’re actually talking about here.
If Paris can do what it did, so can Los Angeles. It has nothing to do with size or age and everything to do with societal and political will mixed with equal amounts of vision and smarts.
And the modern-day reality is that cities and suburbs need to build for a present and a future much, much less reliant on—and even without—cars. Motor vehicle transportation should no longer be considered a primary component or consideration in a modern society. I can spew—and have spewed—a laundry list that actually makes sense in that regard.
But today—let’s focus on that feeling that's more than a feeling.
And—to the best of my ability—let’s try to illustrate the feeling with images. Sadly, it’s beyond my ability to capture the feeling. Plus, I never take enough pictures even after a period of time when I felt like I had my phone out of my pocket all of the time.
Consider this a progression of bad to better to the best in Paris.
The first image is a typical street—dedicated mostly to auto traffic with little, if any space for bikes and narrow sidewalks. While you’re more likely to find these streets outside of core central Paris, they still exist in the center and—often—around some of the big tourist landmarks.
The next five images do a pretty decent job of showing the progression—of showcasing the different environments Paris has managed to sculpt out of what was car-dominated chaos.
It’s common to see streets split in half—with equal space for two-way bicycle traffic and one-way auto traffic. Or one-way auto traffic alongside one-way bicycle traffic. Or—even better, as shown in the last image—an entire massive city street completely turned over to bikes and pedestrians with the exception of taxis and some delivery vehicles.
I’m such an idiot for not taking photos of what are pretty much pedestrian-only parts of Paris. I thought I did, but, unless I can’t find them, I didn’t. But just imagine the streets that front these buildings being full of people and bikes constantly. Every 5-10 minutes you see a taxi, a delivery truck, or a car (random local traffic I think) pass through, often waiting (patiently) for people and bikes.
The difference between the images with cars and the ones without them is just incredible to experience.
From bad to better to the best, yes you can feel it. When it’s bad, everything feels more tense. Paris crowds get relegated to small spaces on either side of suffocating auto traffic. The environment is loud. It smells. It feels more dangerous and unsettling.
Every single move towards the best feels decidedly better.
Your senses open up without emotionally intimidating clutter. You hear the good parts of the city better—the chatter of conversation, the clinking of plates and glasses, the bell of a bicycle, the actual sound of your feet on the pavement—rather than the low-frequency thrum of idling engines. You realize that bustling doesn’t mean frantic—nor should it or does it have to.
And that brings us back to our core mission.
As I also noted the other day:
Valencia is an urban gem in its own right. Coming back here, I’ve been noticing cars and their attendant forms of pollution that I didn’t notice before. But does that mean that I have to move to Paris!?
I never once considered it.
When we got back to Valencia and walked the streets of our neighborhood, I had a smile from ear to ear. The kind of goofy smile you can’t wipe off.
That says a lot.
If Valencia has room to improve—to use Paris as an example, as inspiration—then clearly every single city in America should take note of what’s happening in France.
But that’s always been the difference between European cities and American ones. Since my days studying urban planning, it has been like this.
European cities could stand pat and rest comfortably as shining examples of great urbanism. But they—by and large—don’t. They progress.
American cities have so much room not merely for improvement, but to treat people humanely and they—by and large—not only don’t, but scoff at the mere suggestion of real change.
When you ask yourself, “Where is the best place for me to live?” you’re really asking what type of system you want to be a part of. Do you want to be a part of the one that forces you to fight for every inch of sidewalk, or the one that hands the keys of the city back to the people who actually live there?
Do you want to grow old in places that treat you like a second-class citizen—forced into reclusion—if you don’t want to or can no longer drive? Do you want to live in a place that takes no action against environmental degradation—be it climate change or urban noise pollution?
I could go on—but Paris excels in all of these areas and more. Spain, including Valencia, does incredibly well, but can still do better in some areas. And make no mistake—it’s happening in places such as Barcelona with its super blocks.
New paragraph—the United States doesn’t belong in the same breath as these places. And that’s a shame. For a nation that brags about its ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit, it fails to exercise it in ways other than those that make the rich richer and decrease quality of life for a majority of its citizens.
Paris is proving that the transition is possible—even when it’s messy, even when drivers push back, even when the loudest voices insist it can’t be done.
It’s a reminder that if you can’t find that life where you are, it exists somewhere else.
And if enough people start to see that the novelty of a walkable street should actually be the baseline for a civilized life, maybe the excuses in places like the United States will finally run out.
Anything is possible.
You just have to stop accepting the bad as inevitable.