Comments on Meanwhile, In Paris...

Ahh yes, Progressive Europe.

Somebody should tell the residents of Les Ulis how progressive their mayor is. Les Ulis is The Paris ghetto that is not served by a station of the Paris Métro, RER, or suburban rail network and has no public parks, soviet style concrete hell holes and lousy roads with no bike lanes. Ahhh yes, Europe is soooooooooooo progressive, green and radical. That is if youre white. Shit man, at least we have the lousy 42 and the 7. in France if youre of African, Eastern European or Arab descent, youre on your own.

but David Della says 37 thousand maritime jobs are dependent on the viaduct!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003586348_sundella25.html

how will you explain to little suzy that just because limousine liberals want to give the waterfront to evil condo developers based on a 'tenuous urban design concept', her dad has lost his job at the port & now she'll be sold to the UW vivarium for medical experiments?

I think we need Socialist, Greens and some fucking Anarchists too! Because Socialism seems to work everywhere they have tried it!

interesting - Seattle does have a free zone, duh.

During low traffic one could hit 100 mph on the quai, banks of the Seine expressways.

Paris converted three or four of its old giant train stations to commuter hubs, nice use, 20 30 years ago, Gare du Nord par example.

25 per cent of the French population lives in Greater Paris --- vast city, I am sure the Federal French system is helping to pay the bills.

Lived there for many years, love the place.

And of course Metro, which is the excellent subway system built at the turn of the century. Lots of authentic Art Nouveau decor.

And buses everywhere, all full.

Erica, Licata is not a closet Socialist?

SeMe, that was my first thought, too. The poor in Paris do not live in Paris; they live in the ring of banlieus surrounding it, and frequently have no access to Paris's famous mass transit at all. The tourist heart of the city, with Metro stations all over the place, is not for the most part poor.

This plan is very interesting, but it will be a miracle if it doesn't just cut off huge numbers of people from any hope of employment -- and possibly make it impossible for employers to fill their positions, and make Paris even more of a rich ghetto/museum than it already is. Sort of the "Aspen Problem" on a grand scale.

It will be interesting to see if it works. Check out this article about commuting in the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3085647.stm

"Almost half of the motorists questioned said that if their car journey time doubled, they would simply allow more time for their journey. Only 7% would make the switch to public transport."

Clean air is, apparently, for people who can afford it. That's why there is no city-level solution to the problem. Portland, which claims to have reached Kyoto compliance two years ago, is completely guilty of exactly this sort of ghettoization--and that ghetto is Vancouver, Washington, where working-class people can actually afford to live.

Sadly, the naysayers are largely right in this regard--so-called "progressive" cities (whether Pairs, Portland, or Seattle) that take strong stands on global warming can afford to because their city-centers are largely residential or commercial, having had all industry forced out (typically by sky-rocketing real estate prices) along with the workers. So wealthy elites who favor clean-air regulations and transit get token political commitments that require little sacrifice, while those not lucky enough to live in lovely city centers (and, in the end, the rest of the world) suffer the consequences. In other words, it's not really progress--it's moving the problem onto someone else's turf, scoring PR brownie points, and ultimately achieving nothing.

Excactlly FNARF, Paris is the New Orleans of Europe.

Frankly, I think Light rail will do a lot to bring in the poorer folks from Sea Tac and Skyway who were priced out of the city, but still have to work here. Too bad we couldnt do the Monorail.

I'm pretty surprised that anyone in Paris would bother owning a car at all. The Metro is amazing. Why bother with a car?

aller au paysan - en weekend

"While critics of Measure 2 cite San Francisco as a model for a post-highway city, they forget that San Francisco lost its port economy when it made that choice."

Dave Della is an idiot. As a matter of fact, San Francisco as a major shipping port's final days were about the time they BUILT the damn Embarcadero Freeway, but only because of competition from LB/LA/OAK, and SF's port was never equipped for containerization, which became standard in the early 60's.

I'm assuming he made the rest of the facts in that editorial up off the top of his head as well.

ECB - is Sim's on board with bringing back the monorail or some other rapid mass transit system?

How about those burgeoning numbers of legislators - How about Sen. Jacobsen or Murray?

BTW Chopp makes it clear that he feels we need a rebuilt viaduct and surface/transit to accommodate the growth coming.

What major throughway are they shutting down?

ECB - I bet the greens in Paris are citing Nickels' position on GW but what has he done?

I've been to Paris - a lot - and we are definitely nothing like Paris.

Heck, we're more than 20 years behind even Vancouver BC ... and they're slackers.

@12 - call it light rail (hint: Skytrain) and it's good to go.

News flash: Paris has a head start on us of:

1) over 12 Metro subway lines.
2) over 12 RER regional train lines.

Give us 25 or so good rail lines and maybe we can ban car traffic too!

@8 SeMe -- Maybe those neighborhoods will hold up. The insta-neighborhood that's appeared on the MLK section of Light Rail looks poised to dramatically alter the make-up there.

it will be a miracle if it doesn't just cut off huge numbers of people from any hope of employment

Poor people in France can afford cars/gas/parking?

This is the thing that kills me. I was reading Sunset Magazine today, of all things, and Portland now has AERIAL TRANSPORTATION. We can't even get a monorail built. WTF?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Aerial_Tram

Sure, Seattle is hardly Paris (don't forget the five national rail stations, @15), but we also know that increased road capacity does two things-- lowers transit ridership, and quickly clogs roads again with more cars. A lose/lose situation.
America is largely screwed in this game because the reigning philosophy for decades was "Build More Highways!" We have huge amounts to do in terms of creating effective transit networks.
Clearly, its better to focus on building more transit, now.
And not so much roads.

The rebuild is the choice of fat people.

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