It’s one thing to have bike lanes. And it’s another thing to have really generous bike lanes. The above video by Streetfilms does a good job of comparing Paris to New York City, and showing just how far Paris has come in terms of cycling infrastructure. Some of you might remember that in the fall of last year, Paris announced plans to become a “100% cycling city.” This was a follow-on to their plan vélo 2015-2020, which saw a doubling of the city’s bike lanes. The current plan, which covers 2021-2026, includes 130 km of new bike lanes and 52 km of pandemic lanes that have been (or will be) made permanent. But again, it’s one thing to have a lot of bike lanes. And it’s another thing to have a lot of wide bike lanes that look like the ones in this video.
Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
4 responses to “Paris vs. New York bike lanes”
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Have bike commuted 20 min each way since the 1980’s. Toronto is so much better now. Wonderful improvements for safety and access. Thanks to Joe Cressy and other councillors for their foresight.
we lived in USA for 3 years and made many wonderful friends. Nevertheless, over the years have declined several USA big city job opportunities. Glad we stayed here.-
Great comment – we are Torontonians in NY (but ‘burbs) and every time I come home I am delighted by the expanded bike infrastructure. Shoutout to Jennifer Keesmaat for changing the discourse around transportation in Toronto and offering a Dutch POV on cycling.
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Great video! I shared it with my biking advocate network, since we live in NYC.
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[…] job of prioritizing cycling and building a ton of new lanes over the last number of years. We know this. But another good point that Fred makes is that Paris has allowed competition in their bike sharing […]
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