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.

Paris just announced plans to become a "100% cycling city." A follow-up to plan vélo 2015-2020, which saw a doubling of the city's bike lanes, plan vélo 2021-2026 includes 130 km of new bike lanes and 52 km of pandemic bike lanes that will now be made permanent.

In addition to cycling lanes, the plans include new bike parking, new transit integrations, and a bunch of other things that are meant to strengthen the overall ecosystem in the city. The total budget for this second plan is about €100 million, which will bring the total cycling investment over the last 10-11 years to about €250 million. This is a serious commitment to cycling.

It's also a good example of one of the things that we have been talking about on this blog. This pandemic forced us to rethink how we allocate urban space -- everything from outdoor restaurant patios to bike lanes. And as we can see here, many of the positive changes are not surprisingly starting to stick.