Paris makes all public transport free after 'worst air pollution for 10 years' | Hacker News Reader

Paris makes all public transport free after 'worst air pollution for 10 years'

independent.co.uk

31 pointsJerry29 comments

I'm glad this is happening somewhere, banning cars from cities should be something that is considered else where

The problem is banning cars with no alternative is not productive, cities should be rebuilt so cars can approach the outskirts and have trams/buses/ideas I've not thought of yet, take people around the centre of said cities

The ban bit is easy, the positive alternatives are not

Yeah, that's in short Paris' problem. The last few mayor all wanted to remove all cars from Paris, but they all failed to provide alternatives and failed to meaningfully improve public transportation, especially since most of the network is overworked.

Also most of the cars clogging the roads are going from one suburb to the other and the way the road network is built makes that going through Paris is the best (sometime only) way to go from one side of Paris to the other.

Edit: Not all cars are banned, half of them, based on Vehicle registration plate (even or odd number).

> The ban bit is easy

The ban was made in response to the current pollution problem, but removing half of the cars has a pretty weak impact on air poltution.

If pollution is the issue then ban pretrol-powered cars and give citizens 5 years to move over if they want to continue driving. Offer subsidies for low cost models so its affordable for a modest percentage of the population.

Not only would this cut down on pollution. It would decrease traffic, and still allow those who want a ride from a (taxi, uber, etc) to continue doing so.

AQI in Paris is currently around 130. Almost exactly 1 year ago I flew into Beijing, and the AQI was up toward 500. I wrote a blog post about it, and included one of China's, "IoT solution" for this air quality challenge...

http://www.patdel.com/2015/12/03/yes-that-fog-really-is-poll...

It's useless. People who are not using public transport the rest of the time won't start using them now. They don't use public transport since they can't (no train line, no close train station, has to transport tools/materials). And most train lines are pretty bad, especially since they had to cancel a lot of trains for renovation works a few months ago.

And the mayor is busy trying to create more trafic jams by closing a major West/East roadway along the Seine.

>People who are not using public transport the rest of the time won't start using them now.

They don't have much choice: half of the cars are forbidden in or near Paris (except if there are 3 people inside).

I don't think it's working. People have the choice of risking a fine (32 € or 72 €), which is something a lot of people do.

Anyway, such decision is all talk and does not have much of an impact (just a communication operation).

They can also not go to work. Choice is fast to do.

That is not an acceptable option to many people, and isn't an option at all for entire professions (like doctors, utility and emergency personnel...).

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