Ep 14 The State of the Urban Cycling Nation in Paris – Coolville Urbanism Podcast

Ep 14 – The State of the Urban Cycling Nation in Paris – Romain Loubiere

Mikael discusses the state of the urban cycling nation in Paris with urban designer and mobility consultant Romain Loubiére while sitting on the canal in the spring sunshine on Canal Saint-Martin. They talk about how to tackle the all-dominant traffic engineering culture, the necessity of human observation in traffic planning, Paris’ investment in sub-standard design, who all the new cyclists in Paris are, the new car-light streets around Canal Saint Martin and how Paris – luckily – didn’t build all the highways that were planned in the city centre back in the 1960s.

Romain’s website: https://www.cyclablebydesign.com/

#urbanism #cities #urbanplanning #coolville #city #urbandesign #colvilleandersen #cycling #paris #france #bikes #urbancycling #copenhagenize #design #designthinking #architecture #architect #designer

Mikael Colville-Andersen’s website: http://colville-andersen.com

(The podcast formally known as The Life-Sized City Urbanism Podcast)

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You know what you’re about to listen to the Coolville urbanism podcast I’m your host Michael Koval Anderson here in the spring of 20121 I’ve had the occasion to travel to Paris a couple of times for work I’m curating an exhibition at Lon Denmark the Danish Cultural Center on the shaniz it’s

Called oo siten La reolution R designed and urban which in English is translated as to your bikes citizens the revolution is rolling Danish Urban Design it’ll be a design exhibition focusing on how to design bicycle friendly cities using tried and tested design principles as opposed to the chaotic spaghetti infrastructure we see

In other bike friendly countries it opens on June 18th and runs until September 19th so check it out if you’re in Paris I know Paris I used to live there I visit often I have a huge urban planning map of the city from 1910 tattooed on my right shoulder more than

Many other cities I have been closely following the journey towards reestablishing the bicycle as transport in the French Capital the Catalyst was of course the launch of the city’s Bike Share system VB in 2007 at last count the modal share for the city is now at

5% inside the motorway ring La perer in newspapers around the world last year in articles about temporary bike Lanes photos from rud roli were often featured that iconic East West Corridor the City of Paris has reallocated huge swaths of asphalt and given it over to cycling

It’s a lot of real estate which is impressive as opposed to wellth thought out design which is more necessary a cohesive Network work is still lacking there’s a popere of infrastructure choices that have a hard time connecting this is a city with good intentions but a city that needs to make better design

Choices too many bidirectional lanes big holes on the cycling map with crazy car field intersections to navigate in April 2021 I was doing my funky thing at an intersection studying how cycling citizens were reacting to the design of the infrastructure a young man came up and introduced himself turns out he was

Doing the same damn thing Roman luier is a young urban designer with a company called C by Design the word cblu meaning bikable we spent a few hours visiting different intersections And discussing the design choices some good most bad regarding bicycle infrastructure not least the temporary bike Lanes the City

Of Paris quickly put into place to tackle the pandemic the next day I interviewed him for a French language podcast that will be released least in association with my exhibition along with interviewees like the French ambassador to Copenhagen the head of the city of copenhagen’s bicycle office and

The mobility mayor of Paris David bellad when I came back to Paris in early May 2021 H and I connected again this time sitting in the Sun by Canal Sam in the 10th Aris I had a microphone with me and on the spur of the moment I

Suggested that we hammer out a quick and dirty podcast interview about the state of the Urban cycling nation in Paris we talk about how to tackle the all dominant traffic engineering culture the necessity of human observation in traffic planning paris’s investment in substandard design who all the new

Cyclists in Paris are the new car light streets around Canada samata and how Paris luckily didn’t build all the highways that were planned in the city center back in the 1960s it was a spontaneous idea with all the audio challenges that come with it a bit of

Wind here and there people all around us talking in the sun rolling suitcases on cobblestones passing by music in the distance but hey an auditory soundscape of urban life that I couldn’t control and didn’t really want To all right Roma I was in Paris a month ago being a complete bicycle urbanism nerd standing on the corner of RI and Sebastapol um and then I met this other dorky bicycle urbanist guy you and then we’re the two dorky guys in Paris that day looking at bicycle traffic what were you

Uh what were you doing that day when I met you on the the corner of I and sebas park well I was just um looking at people and people biking on this uh on this infra and on rly uh on this intersection especially because um it’s a huge huge intersection and uh there

Has been uh some some transformation with Corona virus and the new Lanes added on on Riv so uh the intersection is kind of uh unfinished business right now uh so I was just looking at how people were dealing with the the current infrastructure and how they were

Managing to find their way through this as part of study I’m connecting on this specific intersection it was fun to watch because the infrastructure is bizarre there you have you know like a football field wide bike lane on a rivol Le you have sebesta Po and like there’s

It connects very badly so I mean uh what was your what were your impressions of how people were dealing with the infrastructure there um yeah I think people are um are really good at finding solutions by their own which is something that apparently they can do

Well because they are on bikes CU if you look at people driving on this intersection and they realize they can’t turn left to revoli and then they are like what am I doing so well because they’re on bikes people tends to find Solutions more

Easily but still yeah a lot has to be to be done on on this intersection to make it more fluid and and uh just more natural for people okay so for context for The Listener you might have heard of the temporary bike Lanes in Paris Milan

Berlin but yeah here in Paris on this Major Boulevard this artery East West rud de RI uh they really they had a big bidirectional that they put in a couple of years ago um and then they just widened it with an extra Car Lane so it’s this huge ocean of space along the

Street we’ve heard a lot about temporary bike Lanes around the world because of the pandemic but uh Roman what do you think about the solutions that have been put into place very quickly in Paris they reacted fast but what do you think generally about the uh the corona the

The corona infrastructure or the corona pist as they call them in French Corona pist they have been um a booster for bik in pris they have been deployed very quickly by uh by the city council and and and and people in charge of bikes in pris it meant to be temporary so now

They have to be they have to think about what next and how should we um transform it into permanent infra um they should look at people they must look at people using it to to just uh see how people react to infrastructure and uh yeah Riv has to be completely re refer

Yeah so you have noticed here living in Paris over the past year during the pandemic an increase in cycling we’ve seen it all over the world everybody’s saying yeah it’s like there’s more bikes and some places they’ve been measuring a lot but I mean that’s your general

Impression is that cycling this is a good thing the pandemic was a good thing for cycling yeah completely um I mean you’ve seen uh many new people on bikes uh many more children on bikes also and not only on weekends but also on on weekdays like going to school and with

Parents because well the infra is not uh is not um is still not best practice to to allow your 12-year-old uh child to to go to school alone but still you you see more and more uh children more and more woman on on on bikes I think it’s good

Metrics to to to tell a story about the way the the pandemics has transformed the the practice in place I mean women on bikes you know the gender split is an important indicator um I noticed it also I was here a month ago I’m here now in

May 2021 um and definitely you know you can totally see an increase in the number of women I mean I did notice it early though when I first came here back when viip the Bike Share system just started um I came here with my ex-wife on her

40th birthday and I said okay honey I have to do like a little bit of bike thing right cuz they have this new Bike Share system here and I got this blog and stuff and she’s got it’s my birthday okay you get like one hour for your bike

and then uh and then it’s all about me for four days and I’m going yeah no problem but then we’re and I said well we could get one and ride them she’s going are you crazy I’m not going to ride a bike in Paris we both used to

Live here in the 90s like no way then we’re standing down exactly on roli and back then there were there were no bike Lanes it was just sharing with the bus lanes um which is not a good idea if you’re listening to this from a place

That’s talking about it my God but then she’s standing there and it was May and it was Springtime and all these you know women and skirts and heels were riding past and my wife at the time was standing there in skirt and heels and she said okay for God’s sakes I’m a

Copenhagener if these girls can ride bikes in Paris then I can let’s find one of those damn Bike Share bikes and that transformed Paris for us we had four days where we were just like you know going everywhere on bikes and we we know the city and we were just like holy

It’s like the mobility radius is just so for her the indicator species was present very early in Paris women younger older on bikes um so that was that was her uh you know Catalyst for hopping on one of those damn Bike Share bikes back then the talk of temp bike

Lanes in many cities they’re going yeah well the pandemic’s about done we’re going to rip them out and put the cars back what is the the word from the city of Paris I’ve heard that they want to make some of them permanent what is the general politics about these uh

Temporary like bike Lanes what are they going to do with them I think the the idea is to turn them permanent apparently we are starting to uh make it permanent this summer 2021 they can go backward because uh there are so much people using it uh even in in some uh

Some neighborhoods we weren’t uh very bike friendly before and because of the new Lanes they are becoming more and more bik friendly so I’m sure they are going to um transform uh this infra into permanent ones I can see uh why they wouldn’t I mean they have a very green agenda uh

With the mayor Elidel go and the the the mobility mayor David bellad I mean they’re talking about it I mean you know it’s kind of it be awward if they didn’t do it right yeah they have this also these uh 10 minute cities or 20 minute

Cities 15 15 minute cities you know wait wait wait I’ve heard 10 minute I’ve heard 20 minute I’ve heard a one minute City in Sweden like nobody can figure out this right whatever here she’s talking 15 and uh bike is a is a huge part of this uh this vision of uh city

That is uh where every function is closed for anyone to to to live uh a full life I’m know with so well I’m sure it’s going to be uh the the next five or six years are are going to be um I can see why they they wouldn’t go on

With the the bike uh the bike challenge for Paris here so France a big country proud country um I know that through my work places like this like Germany the UK the United States Australia the big countries like that they have this all dominating traffic engineering culture

And I’ve had it for 70 years and it’s really hard for them to see the beauty of and the necessity of putting in better bike Lanes widen sidewalks public transport how do you tackle you know in your work in bicycle urbanism and a person who writes and thinks a lot about

It you know this this this dominant traffic engineering mentality that you are that you suffer under for so many years well I I don’t have the answer otherwise I would be uh uh like the king of the city but um it’s definitely the main challenge is to tackle this uh traffic engineering uh

Mentality and the fact that uh everything about Street transformation for now is about technical issues and finding spaces for uh for every R users and especially for cars still the main challenge is to go beyond these technical issues and to um incorporate the human aspect of because bike is is

Deeply human it’s like uh walking so we have to to make a a U-turn from the technical uh approach to the human and Human Experience approach which is something I’m I’m deeply involved in because it’s my main uh approach on on bike infra which is uh taking into

Account The Human Experience and the human uh way of uh moving in the street and you’re telling me this and I’m going so why is that important I know damn well why it’s important uh we do the same thing right but I mean but in in the context of this engineering culture

Do you find that the conversations about the anthropology about the way people are using the streets the behavior of the cyclists how they react to the different designs do you find that there that the city or you know other people in the industry are listening to this or

Or do or do they have their fingers and their ears saying car car car car it’s not in the picture right now uh it’s completely over L when you you you tell people that uh someone who is biking is not is not at all the same thing as

Someone who is driving behind his wheel they don’t understand one and then when you put people on a bike riding in the city they start to realize uh that it’s completely different that it’s much more like walking uh in the streets and so maybe that’s the the as the way way

To go is to put uh politicians to put people in the in the city council uh on the bikes to make them experience what it is to bike in a city and to make them realize that it’s not at all like driving that it’s something deeply human

Um it’s maybe it’s part of the reason of the the the solution um now I know that like well the big countries like I mentioned before you know have the same mentality about bikes as in America the one difference in many parts of Europe is that we realize in our traffic

Planning that bikes are kind of an extension of pedestrians where in these big engineering countries bikes are kind of like a a half version of the car right so they they’re put in that category where in certainly in the Netherlands and in Denmark you know and in northern Europe

We put bikes in the category with the pedestrians so yeah that’s definitely uh uh that needs to change right they need to take the bikes out of the one box and put them in the other and yeah I think the politicians at City Hall you know the very green politicians the

Socialists uh you know they’re all pretty bike friendly I know the mobility mayor rides a bike to work every day the mayor she’s seen on a bike I don’t know if she rides every day whatever I think all the engineers I think when you start Engineering in University in France you

Got to you have to ride a bike for the first 6 months of your education you want to be a traffic engineer yeah ride a bike for 6 months and get back to us you know yeah but most of the the big traffic engineer schools in in France I

Think there are like uh the campus are far away from the city so basically these These are people who are only thinking in terms of cars and and big Like Trains maybe planes but yeah yeah I know that like in in in North America like in the United States every state

Has a Department of Transport and they they do differ actually they have different policies and stuff like so many things in America it’s very divided uh but I know that you have like Traffic Engineers in Paris who are incredibly arrogant like a grand new idea from Bordeaux they’re saying we tried this

You know for bikes and it really worked well here they’re going yeah we don’t want to do that you know we’re we’re the we’re the Traffic Engineers from Paris like it’s you have a real you know divide between uh the different regions and the engineers here I mean that just

Makes things more difficult my God I am now declaring you the Luke Skywalker of bicycle urbanism the force is strong within you what would you do if tomorrow you were allowed to do whatever you wanted in Paris regarding bicycles as transport well I would put people first

So I would have a look at what people uh want oh they experience the streets uh I would watch them I would ask them uh no see you’re in charge tomorrow so you get to send other people out to watch okay yeah okay I get

The point and I will start uh I would start to um build from that I would say to my uh engineering team take vacation and then we’ll uh we’ll call you back but um yeah I would definitely look at what people oh people uh experience the street all they they they they ride

Bikes and build from that I would also look at copen of course yeah one thing we talked about last time I was here was that in places the city is putting a lot of money into bicycle infrastructure and just general Urban redesign we uh talked about last time

And massive amount of money goes into that it’s finished now nice public space but the infrastructure there you sent me there last time you got to go look at this Michael if you we’re going to study desire lines and behavior you know it’s it’s like a it’s like the PornHub of bad

Bicycle infrastructure and I did right and uh we talked about it after how there there was not one single desire line there was a Spaghetti Junction of Desire lines as a taxpayer in Paris isn’t that irritating you know that they put a lot of money and effort into this

One intersection a very iconic intersection and place uh in Paris and then they did that I mean it is a bizarre thing I mean are you optimistic about the way that they’re going when they’re already doing huge things like that on B there is this uh the public

Space the newly created public space is fine more trees and of course less cars than before but on the bike Crossing bti is like I need a an engineering degree and it’s also what most of my friends are telling me when they are experiencing it for the first time so of

Course it’s irritating um on PE hours I may need like 2 minutes to cross basti which is around 100 m M wide or 200 M wide it’s not far is it so it’s not far and it’s yeah it’s um it looks like something that is like the consultancy firm was

Working on it must be very proud to have creating something that complicated cuz it’s overly complicated so you’re actually impressed at their over complication because they just took the complication and went to the next level with it yeah it’s like the starting point is well best is very complicated

We should do something about that so let’s make it even more complicated that’s all I can fig about in B from my point of view like six years ago I wouldn’t even go uh crossb on a bike apart from my Suicidal Tendencies but no

I can do that I can do that but it’s not because I can do that that I should be uh happy about that and clearly uh it has been over complicated and and that should have we should do something about it clearly so there’s like stuff that

I’ve been saying for years that I seem to repeat ad nauseum you know one of them is I’m not a cyclist I’m just a guy who uses a bike in a city right and the other one is uh it’s not about bikes it’s about what bicycles can do for a

City so we’re sitting in a place that’s pretty damn cool right now it’s springtime in Paris there’s still a pandemic people are lining canel Sam and the park is filled with people but what happened around this neighborhood because we’ve been sitting here for about an hour and not one single car has

Driven past and I know this street this used to be just packed with cars you got to tell me about the transformation of uh the traffic in this neighborhood canel saman was uh one of the main uh goal of ano’s second term she said we should pedestrianized it in during the

Election in 2020 and then there was the pandemic they they they use the pandemic to transform it uh much quickly than than it was scheduled to be so no Canal saman is pedestrianized or at least very carent friendly yeah it’s a huge public space right now you can uh hang out on

The streets and you can do whatever you want uh a year ago well it was just packed with cars so yeah a good transformation of of Street which was uh uh very unfriendly into something that is very friendly for uh public life now now you said said it was pedestrianized

It’s technically not the road is still there but they have really controlled the traffic it’s not permitted to drive all the way through there’s a weird not weird weird but awesome one-way system like in cars are like we’re directing them you know uh forcing them to do

Detours and to go down other streets and things like that so the road is here but the road is filled there’s a bike lane um and all we’ve been doing for an hour is staring at people riding past on bikes and but people aren’t really taking the space you know the but

There’s there’s two pedestrians over there now walking down the middle of the street people still have that mentality that’s a road a car might come because that’s fair enough cuz it’s new right so maybe you know they need a physical transformation to really show that no

Cars will ever be here ever again uh but it is a fascinating you know observational experience sitting here uh having our lunch and uh and watching people yeah slowly taking over the roadway work in progress cuz like 6 months ago well it was winter but um the September October 2020 it was

Already set into a pedestrian area and people were less on the streets they were on the pavement and so yeah it’s a work in progress and even even if it’s the transformation is not physically um performed yeah you see more and more people uh taking taking the space uh

Again in my Urban observations around the world it’s it’s really quite interesting and fascinating to me how it’s a street street closure and everybody in the neighborhood knows it’s a street closure and the city has broadcast it and there’s physical barriers maybe it’s a carfree Sunday or you know whatever open streets movement

Thing and you watch how people still walk down the sidewalks like the majority only a few will actually go out in the middle of the street because we still have that mentality it’s a road this is not my space which of course as we know is completely undemocratic and

Wrong in so many different ways after 7,000 years of cities so it’s a gradual thing I’ve been counting roughly in my head you know oh there’s two pans so there’s two more in the middle of the roadway but most people are walking past us here on the sidewalk yeah it’s not a

Question it’s just sort of I just think it’s cool yeah and the sidewalk is made of uh old Cobblestone so it’s very unconvenient to walk on it so yeah yeah but still oh I I can’t go out there not my space it belongs to those Motors

Right but I think with time if this remains permanent then yeah that that street will uh if we had chairs we could just like sit out there that’d be kind of fun right but we don’t um note to self bring chairs to Paris next time all

Right okay so you you spend a lot of time studying the behavior of cyclists how they react to the design of the you know kind of half-ass infrastructure here maybe some good infrastructure there you know you’re zooming in on all of this stuff in Paris what about the

Typology of cyclists all these new people as you said are coming on to bikes uh since the pandemic started and generally cycling is always increasing in Paris from basically nobody just 15 years ago I think they’re at 5% rough inside the the motorway the uh but what

Do you what do you see when you uh look at who’s riding bikes in Paris there is a diversity of neighborhoods the wealthy the poor the student you know all that the business neighborhoods so of course there’s going to be complexities like there is in any City but tell me about

What you see who’s riding bikes in Paris these days well uh one interesting trend is that uh more and more people from the the Western neighborhoods and like in the west of Paris which are rich neighborhoods uh are riding bikes uh of course ebikes because ebikes seems to be

The the cool way of riding when you when you have money uh but you see more and more you’re rich and white basically anywhere in the world you probably got one of those you need an eike because you don’t have any muscle uh no muscle

It’s years and years of uh SUV riding uh then uh so how many people are going to hate that part of this podcast and I don’t care at all go sorry I’ll interrupted and uh yeah um what is interesting that is that more and more uh women from the the Western

Neighborhood are are riding bikes so it’s good to see that these people are are coming to bikes on some neighborhood like the 10 and the 11 are the small not so many are different from before because people used to uh uh bike a lot they were there are very young uh areas

So yeah people were already used to bike to go shopping to go see their friends but what we can see that more and more young people are doing it now the cool thing is Paris is not to I don’t know take a Uber or or go to the subway it’s

Having a bike and uh having a drink with your friend in in the canal San Martin with your bike uh just leaning on on the not literally in the canal though right that’s after you drink that’s after you drink too much right okay there are lots of bikes inside oh probably that’s just

You know what sorry I’m that is a sign of a healthy bike culture when you find lots of bikes in the canal because it’s just a thing it’s a tool it’s not like a fetish object so I’m always a big fan wow you know kind of of of of that

Seeing that sorry as the the main Trend in in in Paris is uh that of course more and more people are biking and more and more women uh the downside is that still a lot of people wear meds which is uh not a good sign of um best practice

Infrastructure uh because if you think you need a helmet to just go around the city at 15 km per hour then something is wrong so we were down on uh RI the last time I was here in the morning Rush Hour sasap Paul is the busiest bike lane in

The city uh I think you told me 17,000 was the the highest number per day last September uh in September 2020 pandemic year but still it’s uh it’s a good number wait there’s a car literally this is the first car in about an hour and

Hour and a half I think he’s uh moving in yeah he had big boxes on the back seat right okay we needs a car to do that yeah cargo bikes man so for all the people listening to this podcast we wish you were here we’d like to drink with

You maybe not all of you but a lot of you what are we looking at what kind of people are riding bikes past this newly closed Street here right next to the canel Sam in the 10th AR small in uh a really young and cool neighborhood I

Like to hang out here this is usually where I hang out the 3rd the 10th the 11th that’s always been my Paris right but paint a picture Roman your French are romantic paint a picture who’s riding past well just regular people I mean uh could be you could be me of

Course well we are biased even old people on their uh Dutch style bicycle you see like women with their kids and well them on the tandem two people on tandem oh yeah uh it’s just like every kind of French people are are using the bikes here a lot of vintage

Bikes yeah right a lot of the young people on an old poo and old uh Moto uh which is cool right it’s not the big you know SUV electric bikes that the rich white people use it’s kind of a real cool mix of uh bike Styles here Luke uh young mother with

Well the kid is yeah the kid is sleeping uh literally on the on the back seat okay literally that is an amazing thing because that you see that in Copenhagen and Amsterdam the child on the on the seat at the back just collapsed couldn’t handle anymore sleeping the head

Dangling and the mother now we got to get this kid home to bed so that’s that’s a great indicator who’s coming now whole that was like six different vs like two kids right now yeah what are they like seven and nine and they’re riding there where’s their are their

Mom’s up front or maybe that’s their dad behind uh I think the mother is uh in the front yeah yeah like riding down the middle of a closed Street and also yeah so you you also see more more people of color riding bikes P which is also a

Good thing because yeah you see diversity of people and it’s no longer The Reckless cyclist uh or on the streets on bikes I still find it interesting the lib has been a one of the world’s most successful Bike Share systems and the diversity of people you see on them you

Know businessmen in a suit young student uh in a in a dress uh people of color delivery guy also I see a lot usib I think it’s it’s a huge problem for Val that people are using using valb as a a tool of tool for work you think

It’s a problem yeah they are constantly changing the the rules of um I mean the the the fair to make it less and less um interesting to keep a for a day or because of the delivery I don’t know it’s only a supposition okay yeah but um

But no now you now that you mention yeah there are loads of dudes with their whatever Brands you have here Uber Eats uh that’s kind of cool right like in other countries in America Uber Eats shows up in a car so that Uber Eats is a

Lot on bikes here is a is a pretty cool thing but still that if it messes up the whole point of the Bike Share system the quick A to B Last Mile Logistics that’s not very good is it you know you got two young guys there you got a two P oh yeah

Two young ladies with old P there’s a whole porn website I should could make with French vintage bikes Jesus oh yeah young trendy fashionable dude on a on a on a cool old bike okay so simply because I find it interesting how so many cities wanted to buy into the American dream

And just flatten entire neighborhoods to put in motorways back in the’ 60s Copenhagen Oso Helsinki Amsterdam what you were telling me about this place where we’re cting right next to uh can you tell me about like the canal and what was that Park it’s just covered with people right now drinking wine in

The spring Sunshine that Park and the canal what were the plans in the the Kier uh no it’s not the cor it was uh the pl for Paris the the highway plan for Paris in the I I just blame corbusier for all these it’s it’s like derivated from the corbusier way of

Thinking and the idea was to create a huge networks of Highways inside Paris inside the the the the the peripheric area and so the the jardan V where we are now standing was supposed to be one of the main H and interchange area for this uh uh Network so Highway we’re

Supposed to come from underneath to go to a bti on the canal Sam Maran so Canal saman was supposed to be um I don’t know uh just removed yes then it was uh the the the the plan was buried and and know it’s one of the

Coolest place in Paris to hang out uh in a sunny afternoon so thanks thanks to uh pomp to have uh created this to but he died suddenly didn’t he P yeah that’s also kind of a good thing for like I’m sorry to say right but like

It’s uh I’m sure he had a family and everything and they were sad to see him go but really his if he had stayed in power he could have really just hammered through so many more of these uh American style it infrastructures yeah it was probably the the the biggest list

For cars the the funny thing is that the the the the big plan for uh the the highway in Paris was killed by Shak who was a big uh advocate for cars in Paris he said Paris wants to drive we will help them but he killed it because yeah well

The the oil crisis was already behind and uh it was no longer the I mean Parisian they wanted something different from just cars I think already in the in the 8S uh I’ve written an article about it about how crisis disasters are just awesome for bikes right of course I mean we

Don’t want these things happening in our lives well the oil crisis is we were kind of like that was maybe a good thing a good Catalyst for where we are today but you know after Hiroshima you know people just grabbed a bike because you know they had to survive and the bicycle

Was a tool uh we’ve seen it all over the world every time there’s a a Metro strike here in France which is like every second weekend right but or but in London as well Transit strikes the pandemic right it’s just a NeverEnding boost the financial crisis as well back

In 20089 and all that so it is really uh an amazing observation to see how the bicycle whenever we we forget about it and all of a sudden we need it the bike’s right there going yeah all right where do you want to go it’s a I’m

Really going poetic on us here now we’re not even that we’re not even drinking Jesus but then there is the urban poetry of the old Motorway along the river sen which was called The George padoo Motorway and now it’s just a bunch of people hanging out listening to music

And uh drinking some wine today right that’s I love that Urban poetry yeah and even the the the part of the way which is still open to traffic has been cut in half and one part of the the the way is dedicated to bik so so what was the Shirak quote

Again but the quote that I literally have quoted the most over the past several years in Keynotes and in interviews is a quote from another mayor of Paris Bono the the guy who was there before and she’s continuing his work and doing her own cool thing but his quote man the

Fact is that there is no place for cars in the big cities of our time that one is like the mayor of a major Global City saying that kind of stuff that is caused for us to all stop and think whoa maybe we are going back to the future right

Yeah you got you’re got at quotes you French people right you got a lot of cool quotes good and bad but still very quotable right awesome dude this was maybe more unstructured podcast episode but we’re sitting here in the sun it’s May in Paris the pandemic is slowly winding down and uh

The future is on bikes yeah definitely thanks for your time Roman thank you that wraps up another episode of the Coolville urbanism podcast I’m your host Michael Koval Anderson thanks for listening and you know remember it’s your city take it back