Our time in Paris has come to an end. It's time to get back to the greatest city in the world (Toronto). As has become customary around here, I'd like to summarize some of my anecdotal observations from the trip. Here goes:

The first one is an obvious one. Paris has transformed itself into a cycling city. Bold planning moves have explicitly prioritized biking, and you can feel it everywhere you go, including outside of the Périphérique. Young and old, families and individuals, everyone seems to cycle in Paris. In parallel to this, it feels like there has been a noticeable reduction in vehicular traffic. Many of the smaller streets around Paris almost feel like they've been pedestrianized. But in fact, it's just because there are so few cars.
Because of this change, I asked an Uber driver this past week if traffic has gotten worse and if it has generally gotten harder to drive in Paris. His response was absolutely. So I then asked him how Parisians generally feel about all of the changes and all of the new cycling lanes. The first part of his answer didn't surprise me. He said people who live in Paris love it because it's now easier to get around and they don't need to own a car. It's more efficient. But people who drive into the city or pass through it don't like it. Fair. However, as somebody who drives for a living, the second part of his answer did surprise me. He said, the changes needed to be done — bikes are a more efficient form of transport and they have greatly reduced pollution within the city. I thought this was quite an enlightened and selfless response.
The geography of Paris is changing. Parisians used to think of their city as only existing within the boundaries of the Boulevard Périphérique. (This is technically the boundary of Paris proper, but there is also the Métropole du Grand Paris, which encompasses the greater urban region.) New investments in transit, new developments, and pioneering urbanists are changing this mental model. A New Paris has arrived. And its modal split seems to be skewed toward non-car forms of mobility, to the point that younger Parisians don’t even seem to bother getting a driver’s license.
Anecdotally, I also noticed a big uptick in running, in the number of gyms/fitness studios in the city, and in the number of people walking around in athleisure wear. I view this as North American culture creeping in. Historically, my understanding is that running — and getting sweaty in public — was considered a bit of a faux pas. But at one point this week, I saw a parade of people running in and out of a Drip and doing laps down a busy street filled with cafés. Clearly, attitudes have changed.
Paris is, of course, well known for its cafés and terraces. But I would like to emphasize how beneficial these spaces are for the city. Every terrace comes equipped with a large awning that extends out into the street and creates a kind of outdoor room. These rooms then fill up with an endless supply of people facing outward, adding life, conversation, and eyes on the street. It's a wonderful way to create urban vibrancy, and you really feel the difference on streets where they don't exist. More cities need to figure out how to replicate this simple formula.
Food is different in Paris (and in Europe more broadly). There is real concern over the quality of ingredients and what we put in our bodies. We touched on this briefly, here. The difference is that you feel as if you can eat whatever you want, and the end result is that you feel satisfied, not gross. You also don't feel as if you've just ingested a sodium bomb.
On this trip, Bianca and I spent a lot of time exploring the 9ème, 10ème (where we were staying), and 11ème arrondissements, with regular trips south to Le Marais. We've now been to Paris enough that we're starting to figure out which areas we like the most. (If you have a favorite area, please leave it in the comments section below.)
Finally, I would like to end by saying that the trains in Paris are something they should be proud of. When we come to Paris, we always take the train into the city and, on this trip, we took the metro on a number of occasions to get out to places like Pantin and Boulogne. Not once did we wait more than a minute or two for a train. In fact, even during off-peak times, the maximum headway between trains seemed to be 4 minutes. With this at your doorstep, and with all the new cycling infrastructure that has been introduced, I guess it's no wonder that many Parisians couldn't care less about driving.

Until next time, Paris.

September 10, 2025

How the Grand Paris Express is stitching together Greater Paris

Paris has a massive transit project that is currently under construction called the Grand Paris Express. It consists of 4 new metro lines, 1 line extension (at both ends), 68 new stations, and 200 km of new tracks. The first phase was the extension of Line 14. That opened last year. And the new lines are planned to open in stages up until 2031. I have no idea if they're on schedule and/or on budget, but here's a map of the GPE project:

Here's what it looks like if you overlay all existing metro lines (note how concentrated they are in Paris proper and how they're clearly designed to bring people into the core):

Here's what it looks like if you overlay all existing tram lines:

And finally, here's what it looks like if you overlay all existing RER lines (suburban rail):

At this point, the map is getting visually pretty cluttered. But if you look at how the GPE lines compare to what's existing, I think you'll start to see just how important this project is for the Métropole du Grand Paris (or Greater Paris). It creates a new set of concentric rings in the inner suburbs and, for the first time, it will allow Parisians to travel around the region (via rail) without first passing through the core of the city. So it's in effect both an expansion and a stitching together of the city.

But let's put some numbers to this.

According to a recent memo by Apur, which looked at the economic composition of the station areas, about 21% of all salaried employees in Grand Paris are located next to one of the new 68 stations. As a total number, this works out to about 934,000 employees (2022 figure). And included in this figure is La Défense, which is the office district where Paris decided to put most of its tall buildings. This has the highest concentration of jobs at approximately 163,599 salaried employees (again, 2022 figure).

Another way to think about these station areas is that they represent what many are now calling New Paris. This is a part of Paris that is less encumbered with history and, therefore, more open to change and new ideas. This creates an exciting opportunity, and already we're seeing that take hold. Later this week on the blog, I'll talk about a specific project in Greater Paris that is currently under construction and that I was fortunate enough to tour on this trip.

August 14, 2025

The road safety gap between Canada and the US continues to widen

One of the many differences between Canada and the US is that our roads are less deadly. A new study by the US Insurance Institute of Highway Safety and the Canadian Traffic Injury Research Foundation found that between 2010 and 2020, total road deaths in the US rose 18%, while in Canada they declined 22%.

This "crash gap" also widens when you look at deaths per vehicle mile driven (as opposed to per capita), which should, in theory, normalize the fact that Americans tend to drive more on average than Canadians. So why might this be? Both countries are broadly car-oriented, at least compared to the rest of the world.

The study presents a number of possible explanations: Canada has stricter drunk driving laws, Canada uses more traffic cameras, Canadians are relatively poorer and therefore drive less, Canada has higher gas taxes (which discourage driving), and the list goes.

But my unproven theory is that a lot of this gap can be explained by differences in the built environment. Solutions like traffic cameras are, to give just one example, what you do when you've failed to design the road you actually want. They're patches, not fixes.

The root problem is the design of the road itself, which is why New Yorkers are only about a third as likely to die from a transportation-related accident compared to the average American. Why? Because it's an urban place designed around non-car mobility.

Conversely, this is also why the top 20 most deadly metro areas in the US for pedestrians are in the south, as opposed to in older northern cities. And it's because these tend to be newer car-oriented metros.

So when it comes to Canada vs. the US, I suspect that much of the gap can be explained by differences in the physical environment and higher transit usage north of the border. It probably also explains why Canada is safer than the US, but not safer than Europe when it comes to transportation-related fatalities. We're simply not urban enough.

The simple takeaway is that the more you optimize your environment for cars, the more dangerous you make it for humans.

That said, this is likely to change with the continued adoption of autonomous vehicles. We can (and should) debate whether it's prudent to plan our cities around them, but I think there's little doubt that we'll see road safety increase dramatically.

Chart via CityLab

September 15, 2025

A few observations about Paris (second edition)

The first one is an obvious one. Paris has transformed itself into a cycling city. Bold planning moves have explicitly prioritized biking, and you can feel it everywhere you go, including outside of the Périphérique. Young and old, families and individuals, everyone seems to cycle in Paris. In parallel to this, it feels like there has been a noticeable reduction in vehicular traffic. Many of the smaller streets around Paris almost feel like they've been pedestrianized. But in fact, it's just because there are so few cars.
Because of this change, I asked an Uber driver this past week if traffic has gotten worse and if it has generally gotten harder to drive in Paris. His response was absolutely. So I then asked him how Parisians generally feel about all of the changes and all of the new cycling lanes. The first part of his answer didn't surprise me. He said people who live in Paris love it because it's now easier to get around and they don't need to own a car. It's more efficient. But people who drive into the city or pass through it don't like it. Fair. However, as somebody who drives for a living, the second part of his answer did surprise me. He said, the changes needed to be done — bikes are a more efficient form of transport and they have greatly reduced pollution within the city. I thought this was quite an enlightened and selfless response.
The geography of Paris is changing. Parisians used to think of their city as only existing within the boundaries of the Boulevard Périphérique. (This is technically the boundary of Paris proper, but there is also the Métropole du Grand Paris, which encompasses the greater urban region.) New investments in transit, new developments, and pioneering urbanists are changing this mental model. A New Paris has arrived. And its modal split seems to be skewed toward non-car forms of mobility, to the point that younger Parisians don’t even seem to bother getting a driver’s license.
Anecdotally, I also noticed a big uptick in running, in the number of gyms/fitness studios in the city, and in the number of people walking around in athleisure wear. I view this as North American culture creeping in. Historically, my understanding is that running — and getting sweaty in public — was considered a bit of a faux pas. But at one point this week, I saw a parade of people running in and out of a Drip and doing laps down a busy street filled with cafés. Clearly, attitudes have changed.
Paris is, of course, well known for its cafés and terraces. But I would like to emphasize how beneficial these spaces are for the city. Every terrace comes equipped with a large awning that extends out into the street and creates a kind of outdoor room. These rooms then fill up with an endless supply of people facing outward, adding life, conversation, and eyes on the street. It's a wonderful way to create urban vibrancy, and you really feel the difference on streets where they don't exist. More cities need to figure out how to replicate this simple formula.
Food is different in Paris (and in Europe more broadly). There is real concern over the quality of ingredients and what we put in our bodies. We touched on this briefly, here. The difference is that you feel as if you can eat whatever you want, and the end result is that you feel satisfied, not gross. You also don't feel as if you've just ingested a sodium bomb.
On this trip, Bianca and I spent a lot of time exploring the 9ème, 10ème (where we were staying), and 11ème arrondissements, with regular trips south to Le Marais. We've now been to Paris enough that we're starting to figure out which areas we like the most. (If you have a favorite area, please leave it in the comments section below.)
Finally, I would like to end by saying that the trains in Paris are something they should be proud of. When we come to Paris, we always take the train into the city and, on this trip, we took the metro on a number of occasions to get out to places like Pantin and Boulogne. Not once did we wait more than a minute or two for a train. In fact, even during off-peak times, the maximum headway between trains seemed to be 4 minutes. With this at your doorstep, and with all the new cycling infrastructure that has been introduced, I guess it's no wonder that many Parisians couldn't care less about driving.

Until next time, Paris.

September 10, 2025

How the Grand Paris Express is stitching together Greater Paris

Here's what it looks like if you overlay all existing metro lines (note how concentrated they are in Paris proper and how they're clearly designed to bring people into the core):