At Large Non et Merde Non!
posted by on March 12 at 10:17 AM
Rushing out the door to catch a plane to Paris, I realized I forgot to vote. Oh, foie gras… So I grabbed my ballot and planned to fill out and mail it after I arrived.
I figure Paris, which has dealt with transportation woes since it was founded by the all-paving Romans, could provide an example for our fair city.
The banks of the Seine are the closest things Paris has to a waterfront. And three-and-four-lane waterfront roadways lining the river are the closest things Paris has to freeways inside the city. And they get along just fine. Of course, there is a real freeway near Paris, the Périphérique, but it circumnavigates the city like the DC beltway.
Does the lack of freeways – elevated, buried, or otherwise – make the city an unlivable mess? No; it’s Paris. It’s amazing. If it were any more livable they’d ban funerals. People avoid driving when they can, they invest in real public transit solutions, they ride public transit even in bad weather, they enjoy the views from the street, they walk. Any people who dress better, socialize constantly, and eat like kings seven days a week without turning into manatees must be doing something right.
So, I fill out my ballot.
This is one of those big riverside roads, but imagine if instead a double-decker freeway were here. Well, the views of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower sure would be stunning as you zip by…
Photo courtesy of my father, Ronald, AKA the Cornichon.
Yeah, but remember: A Parisian tunnel killed Princess Diana. TUNNELS KILL!
I love it when people go to Paris and become experts halfway through their first hour there.
That "riverside road" you mention is a blazing expressway carried in tunnels for significant portions of its route. Remember Princess Di?
As for the rest of Paris, all we need to do to emulate their greatness (and it is a great city) is to move all the poor people out to forty-story concrete towers beyond the ring road, and move all the business towers to a single concentration outside the ring road, devote virtually all of the central city to apartments for the wealthy or the government-connected, and tourism. Surely there's as many people wanting to visit Seattle as the #1 tourist destination in the world, right? Surely it's no problem building a ring road in a city that's on the water's edge, right? Surely there's no problem picking up all of the office towers in Seattle and moving them to Bellevue -- that's underway already, isn't it?
Paris is a great city because, in part, it isn't a city at all, but a collection of wealthy residential neighborhoods. That's terrific. If you want one here, you're going to have to figure out where to put the city part, though.
Dude, nice buttresses.
Killing Princess Diana makes me want a tunnel MORE, not less.
It's also built in a different soil structure - we have glacial fill and the area they want a tunnel in is partially vacuoles from when we razed the burnt-down city during the Great Fire. Paris is limestone and rock and is great for tunnels.
Actually the mayor of Paris recently announced plans to restrict car access along the Seine and reduce emissions by 60% by 2050. Paris is not only converting the surface option to transit and foot traffic in order to improve their proxy waterfront, they intuitively identified the connection between emissions and capacity. duh.
Hey, fnarf, gotta say that the nabe Dominic and I are staying in, Montorgueil, is a pedestrian zone with great mixed-use buildings. A patent attorney has his offices in the apartment below; the courtyard has some sort of shipping/receiving activity for a retailer across the street. On the sidewalk, there's a bakery, a bar and a bank.
Parisians don't have to go far to find all they need. Markets in every part of town, cafés, parks, churches. Ironically, the wealthiest neighborhoods are the least lively, because rich old folks just don't go out much.
Paris rules.
And once we get two dozen subway and regional rail lines, we’ll be able to junk our cars too.
and of course we can't compare Seattle to any other place, cause Seattle is so special and unique that nothing that applies in other places would apply here.
And every city on the banks of the Rhine. Especially Mainz, Germany.
Dominic = tres hottie!
Oh wait. This was supposed to be a serious Slog post about traffic... or something.
Never mind.
Um, Fnarf... Not to totally burst your tunnel, err, bubble, but this is my sixth trip to Paris, and I once lived here through the summer. Oh, and I was born in France too. So this wasn't exactly my "first hour" here, you see.
As for your other contention, that Paris isn't really a city, gosh... I don't know what to say. It's a city all right -- a big, bustling, packed-with-office-buildings and over-two-million-residents city. But you're right about one thing: The suburbs suck everywhere.
So, for suggesting that Paris and Seattle are not all that similar, I'm the crazy one. Right.
Dominic, spend much time out at La Defense?
Gentlemen, seriously, you're both right. Think about it, we have Renton, Burien, Everett and Tacoma, Paris has bad suburbs too. We have water bodies, they have to work around historical landmarks and boulevards. They are different cities, but all cities can benefit from prudent urban planning, the major difference is that our leaders can't seem to realize that planning for the future means embracing the idea that single occupancy vehicles will be an untenable mode of transportation by the time any of our waterfront options are completed. Paris has the infrastructure in place to reduce capacity, we need to start building ours yesterday. Make nice now, we're all on the same page.
Within just a few blocks of my house on Beacon Hill we have a market, cafe, bar, church and library. Plus literally dozens of accountants and hair stylists for some reason.
But it's definitely not what I think of when I think of Paris. If anything, it reminds me of a slightly depressed small town in Iowa.
But I'm one of those losers who have never been outside of the US, other than Canada, which just doesn't count.
Oh, and by the way,
Dominic = Ooo La La! ;-)
"the major difference is that our leaders can't seem to realize that planning for the future means embracing the idea that single occupancy vehicles will be an untenable mode of transportation by the time any of our waterfront options are completed."
I think it's far more likely that electric cars start to become the norm than everyone deciding that they suddenly want to use mass transit. Engineering challenges are far easier to overcome than cultural ones.
zzyzx, suppose a clean electric car shows up tomorrow: Where are we going to store all of them? How will that relieve gridlock? How will we pay for the extra land to widen the highways to accomodate those cars? The population is growing, not shrinking.
Electric cars won't relieve gridlock or parking issues, but mass transit isn't going to be ready and practical for at least 30 years so we're going to need something.
I would love to take a bus to work for environmental reasons. I live in a house that's directly served by two downtown express routes. It doesn't help me at all though, because I'm a high tech worker and all of the jobs I've been able to find would require 90 minutes one way instead of a 15 minute car ride. Until there's mass transit to and from the Eastside and routes throughout the suburbs, mass transit isn't going to be a practical option.
30 years is a bit of an exaggeration, we can do better than that, I'm quite sure. Our population will continue to grow regardless of the traffic because our city is more beautiful than the rest. I live on the hill and avoided having a car for 10 years but finally landed a gig that requires a Bellevue commute. Being the responsible environmentalist that I am, I tried the bus for a month and after wasting 3 hours a day commuting via public transit (turning my 50 hour week into a 65 hour week) I finally caved in and bought a car. Luckily I found someone to carpool with but you're completely right - people will continue to drive until we have trains bisecting the lake. Trains are faster and more appealing than busses and they're the only suitable option for our climate, people don't want to stand in the rain waiting for a bus while being splashed by passing SUV's, we want high speed trains running east/west and north/south. I'm willing to bet that most people don't really even care how much it costs. And with regards to that post about the port needing a viaduct/tunnel? We should be moving most everything coming out of the port via rail anyway.
I hope all the other pot smokers remember to vote at the last second.
With regard to electric cars, I'll put in my pitch for station cars again. While California's electric car mandate was in effect, several transit agencies installed fleets of electric cars at key suburban rail stations.
One commuter drives it home at night and to the station in the morning. Another takes the train out to the burbs, and picks up the car for his trip to work. Others at his workplace can use it during the day.
More effective use of P&R spaces, more connectivity for suburban transit users. More electric cars on neighborhood arterials, less cars on the freeway.
Write Sound Transit and tell em to study putting station cars at Link stations.
"30 years is a bit of an exaggeration, we can do better than that, I'm quite sure."
That's what I thought too and have been voting for any mass transit system (including the monorail every time it came up), but look at Sound Transit's plans. The Redmond stretch is just in the initial planning segment. They're not even planning to have a final design in place until 2009. I would love for there to be high speed rail along 405, 520, and I-90 and will vote for any such proposal, but this is going to be a long process.
...although rereading the plans, it's probably closer to 20 years to have a train to Redmond.
Personally, I love Paris. Most trips to Europe, I start and end there, and then take high-speed passenger trains instead of planes to go visit other places.
Plus, the cafes are wonderful!
And if you get the Metro Pass - even the 14 day one - it's cheap as heck. Save a bundle - get a cheaper hotel room out a bit (say S of St. Denis) and ride the Metro in to everything ...
Build transportation infrastructure like what they have in Paris, and I'll stop bitching about having roads until that infrastructure is like. By the way, here are some links to Parisian transit:
The Metro: (subway)
http://www.paris.org/Metro/gifs/metro01.map.jpg
The RER: (regional train system)
http://www.paris.org/Metro/gifs/rer01.map.jpg
Nice systems aren't they?
Once we have something like that in place, then glossy pics of people telling me to shove Highway 99 up my ass might get me to listen.
By the way, unless they've really cleaned it up, the Metro smells quite similar to the Number 4 bus after it leaves Harborview. That and lack of deodorant make for a fine ride. Then again it is Paris :)
for a pot-smoking, trust fund baby, Dominic is awfully damn cute...
Sweet. Have fun over there, dude. I'm heading over in May for a few days.
Michael, you're a sweetheart for the compliment (it's a generous photo), but please don't call me a... correct derision here... Trustifarian. I'm a poor-as-fuck activist who managed to save enough bucks to buy a ticket to take a week off. Unless you're willing to shell out, sugar, keep clam.
#26 M. David Coffman is right.
We need real rail rapid transit in every major corridor. Not just highways-only "solutions" for each major corridor-- as proposed in the highway-only viaduct rebuild proposal, or the mayor's highway-only tunnel proposal.,
How else are we going to get real people to real jobs everyday, after we continue to grow by one million more?
Fiddling with highways or rebuildin highways is not a solution neither is whining about growth.
Nearly every other city in the world has figured it out: you have to build some major public transportation infrastructure.
You need trains in an exclusive right of way. And they need to go pretty much everywhere. And you need transfer stations. This lets every one go to jobs, schools, bars, shops all over the region -- on public rapid transit.
C'est tres évident ! Alons y -- faisons notre Metro ici -- vite, vite!
@#30
Sassy! I gather that the Holdens are a clever bunch!
Have fun in Paris.
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