alt Hacker NewsThis article has such a weird framing.
It keeps repeating how the cleaner air is so good for tourists.
But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air.
The Parisian residents living there throughout the year do.
Maybe because it’s CNN, an American outlet, they’re focused on the “tourist”, but these benefits have mostly accrued to Parisians.
Also, the 4% increase in traffic jams is minuscule when compared to other large cities across the world (outside of maybe NYC, since it implemented congestion pricing over that period). Paris has not escaped the wrath of the SUV, and a large part of the congestion cities across the world are seeing is solely down to cars becoming bigger.
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I think it’s no easy task to reform a city away from being car-centric. In my home town of Ghent (in Belgium), we’ve had several iterations of a traffic plan that gradually reduces the number of parking spaces, rises taxes and car related costs, makes streets one way or deprioritises cars (e.g. a car doesn’t have priority over a bike anymore) etc. It’s not easy but the city today is a lot more liveable than it was when all this started.
Paris is consistently somewhere in the top 10 cities worldwide by number of tourists per year and this is an extremely important factor to the city. Even if if Le Monde was writing this in French the impacts to/from tourism would be relevant to the article.
Agreed the tourist POV center focus is bizarre AF. it’s almost like they were afraid to ask Parisians or even other French natives regularly frequenting Paris what they thought and so they just went with tourists are happy…
When did the fad for compact cars end? Where did all these SUVs come from? Why do drivers want to lug all this extra weight and space around with them all the time?
Things I noticed right off the bat: framing it as a tourist verses locals issue, a complete lack of numbers backing that claim, and the few numbers presented in the article have any context. I realize this is a travel article, but it seems to be more of a propaganda piece.
Take the claim that the locals hate the changes. Well, the mayor was reelected. So they claim the voter turnout was low and people were complaining, so people obviously don't support it. Sorry, you can't make that conclusion. Under ordinary circumstances, 100% turnout would only tell you the overall support for a particular candidate or party, not a particular policy. A low turnout may reflect an electorate who is not particularly passionate in any of the issues presented in the election, or it may mean something else. It was probably something else in the 2020 elections because those were anything but ordinary: they fell during the peak of pandemic uncertainty (i.e. March to June). So a flimsy assertion based upon flimsy evidence.
Then there are the scanty numbers without context. A 4% increase in traffic jams since 2015 and 31% decline in bus use between 2018 and 2024. First of all, the words "bus use" sounds highly selective. It looks like the Paris metro has been expanding and modernizing rapidly in recent years, which would both take load off of busses and be disruptive to transit users. Oh, and that pandemic thing raises its head again. I don't know about Paris, but a lot of cities took a hit to transit ridership during the pandemic and some are claiming to reach pre-pandemic levels only now. Also, cyclists tend to be the whipping boy for traffic congestion. I can't speak for Paris, but the reality in my parts are that population growth and a surge in construction have been far more disruptive than cycling infrastructure.
Sorry about the rant, but I'm sick and tired of the views of one segment of the population completely overriding the views of another segment of the population ... especially when there are assertions based upon assumptions and flimsy evidence.
Travelers are more sensitive to sudden changes. I got sick in Sicily on day one of my vacation because of how bad the air was.
I mean it’s a “CNN Travel” article…of course it’s going to focus on Paris as a travel destination.
>But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air.
First impressions matter, though.
When you fly into e.g. New York and they pop the door open you get that whiff of exhaust fumes. The city reeks.
Vancouver on the other hand it smells like the ocean.
Any improvement of air quality does matter for tourists and residents.
> Paris has not escaped the wrath of the SUV, and a large part of the congestion cities across the world are seeing is solely down to cars becoming bigger.
Europeans don't drive Suburbans. They drive crossovers that are, if anything, shorter than the equivalent sedan or wagon.
How does an SUV cause more congestion than a sedan? That seems untrue to me.
Cleaner air is still good for tourists & the article is part of the Travel section of this publication.
> But tourists visiting Paris for a week don’t get the majority of the benefit from cleaner air.
You’re missing the point: tourists are good for the city. If Paris gets a reputation of being polluted, tourism will decline.
I agree, CNN has always had a weird angle to its bias. I am by no means a FOX news nut . I really think a lot of american "news" now is similar to How The WWF ( World Wide Wrestling Federation/ World Wrestling Entertainment) isn't a Sport. CNN , FOX, MSNBC/MSNOW , Newsmax etc aren't news but unfunny entertainment.
The new large cycling strips that appeared in the last 5-6 years are so good. At commute time there are frequently jammed with /cyclists/, but let's face it it's miles better than being stuck in a car. I shudder to think about the alternative where each cyclist was instead alone in a small car, this wouldn't even fit on the roads.