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Paris to ‘get rid of 70,000 parking spaces’

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BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP | 3 years ago
5 likes

I live between both cities and what I see is anecdote not evidence. London is full of cyclists - I cycle everywhere in London and I see cyclists in the central 1- 3 zones all the time. The same in Paris except I also see them in the outer zones because the infrastructure reaches from the centre to the outer zones. Central London has some excellent infrastructure but it's very limited in its reach and dependent on Borough support (see LB Kensington & Chelsea for e.g.)  Paris 'feels' less agreesive and less hostile - and the big, big difference is that I see lots more children cycling to school in Paris then I do in London. That would suggest that parents feel it is safe for their children to cycle. Or if you prefer the Daily Express version it's  because the EU hates their children and does not care for their safety. 

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iandusud | 3 years ago
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This is very good. When are our ludite authorities going to start talking and acting along these lines? As it is we have RBKC ripping up a cycle lane that allows people, including shcool children, a safe alternaive to getting in the car.

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markieteeee replied to iandusud | 3 years ago
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Completely agree.  It would need careful implementation as part of wider measures. Since parking charges and resident permit-only-parking were introduced on many London streets, in areas where people have front gardens, an alarmingly huge proportion have converted into drives. Collectively green space equal to the size of Hyde Park has disappeared over the last 30 years just by people concreting over their fronts. Even the most hardened climate change denier would be up in arms if anyone allowed a park of this size to be made into a car park, but it's happened by stealth.

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TheBillder | 3 years ago
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One of the easier ways to reduce city congestion, along with raising the cost of the remaining spaces (with appropriate residential and mobility impaired concessions). It's cheaper to do than road pricing.

There's another interesting article on that site: https://www.itsinternational.com/its3/news/parking-expert-end-monopolys-....

Near the end there's a stat that the USA has more parking space per car than housing space per person, which really seems the wrong way round.

Thanks for posting hp, an interesting read.

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hawkinspeter replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
1 like

It's amazing how much of the public roads are given over to free parking, even in this country. The problem is that we've all grown up with the expectation that we are entitled to park a vehicle for free.

I'd like to see more of the free parking moved over to paid-for parking. It's cheap and easy enough to set up APNR cameras to function in the place of parking meters - they'd be cheaper to install and it'd be trivial to set up automatic billing of the car owners (no more running out every couple of hours to stuff coins in a meter). I'd imagine that on-street parking should be the most expensive as it's most convenient for the driver, so there'd also be a need for cheaper multi-story car parks (e.g. NCP style).

As an aside, I wonder if there'd be much of a market for upmarket, paid-for cycle parking - covered, locked and manned - maybe even chuck in a shower cubicle too.

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fukawitribe replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
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hawkinspeter wrote:

As an aside, I wonder if there'd be much of a market for upmarket, paid-for cycle parking - covered, locked and manned - maybe even chuck in a shower cubicle too.

MudDock offer that, or used to, at the Bike Shed - not sure how business is now, and they had an issue with a proposed massive rent hike a year or so ago, but it had been going for 15 years or so by then.

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hawkinspeter replied to fukawitribe | 3 years ago
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fukawitribe replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
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Aye, saw the web page still up - was not sure how rent issue and lock-down(s) etc had affected business.

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hawkinspeter replied to fukawitribe | 3 years ago
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I haven't gone past there in a while, so can't confirm/deny anything other than their web page.

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hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
2 likes

Dagnammit - I hit return before I'd finished making the post. (I can't edit or delete it as I get an error 'Revision publish date can't be smaller than now').

Anyhow, I was going to contrast the difference between our lacklustre attempts at making cities more livable with the excellent progress made by Paris and Anne Hidalgo. (Just spotted that the article is from October btw)

And add a picture:

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