Paris To Exclude Cars For One Day

For a single day next month, locals and visitors will be able to experience Paris without motorized traffic, giving the city over to pedestrians and bikers. Free of traffic congestion, noise pollution and vehicle emissions, the Day Without Cars will transform the physical and auditory landscape, enabling views and revealing ambient sounds ordinarily drowned out by the urban cacophony on September 27th.

Timed to coincide with a United Nations climate conference and European Mobility Week, the move is partially a display of possibilities for car-free cities as well as a statement about the environment. The 1st through 7th, 10th and 11th arrondissements (city sections) will all participate; monuments and gathering spaces such as the Champs Élysées, the Bastille, and the Eiffel Tower are included as well. (via)

Oh how I wish we could do this, even for one day, even once a year, pretty please with cycling on top can we exclude all cars from the city for one day?!?!?

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

Awesome Paris Bike Lane

There is so much to love here, the short curbs make it highly unlikely people will park there but allow emergency vehicles the ability to hop over them, the parked cars protect from run away vehicles, and the road markings make it clear who the lane is for (if being too narrow for cars didn’t already make them aware of that).  They even lowered the curbs on the bike side a little to allow you to run up onto them to prevent crashing if you were to come into contact with that side.

Thanks John for sending in this picture.

Dear City,

Can we have these!

Love

Boston Cyclists.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet

Paris Adopts “Idaho Stop” Law

Seems we will finally get some data on a major metropolitan area trying out the Idaho Stop law. I have long been waiting for an area with a lot of traffic to try out something like this.

A new government decree has just authorised cyclists in the French capital to go through red lights, after road safety experts deemed the measure would cut road accidents.

It follows a fierce three-year campaign by cyclists’ associations.

Under the new system, which will be first tested on 15 crossroads in the East of the French capital, cyclists are allowed to turn right or go straight ahead even when the lights are red.

They must, however, make way for pedestrians and incoming traffic on the left and will be held responsible in the event of an accident.

Red and yellow signposts posted on traffic light poles will inform cyclists that they can ignore the lights in designated 30km per hour zones. If judged feasible, the scheme will then be rolled out to 1,700 crossroads in Paris.(via)

This would be applicable to places like New York and Boston, if they find that this doesn’t cause serious problems it could be implemented in other major cities…then again many Boston road users already follow their own “Boston stop” guidelines, so perhaps we do have years of data to draw upon. What do you think? Would Boston streets run red with the blood of a million dead cyclists if we adopted this law here?

Add to Reddit.

Tweet