Paris car ban set to start after pollution hits high
 

Notes/Food for thought:
1)Residents will only be allowed use their cars every other day. (alternating days)
2) Fine if it is violated
3) Is this the new model of the future to prevent pollution?
4) Will this be effective or is it violating the rights of people?
4) Is this too radical and should more cities apply such methods?
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Paris car ban set to start after pollution hits high

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16 March 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26599010
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I think I noticed this walking around London yesterday as well. The sky was completely blue and there was a slight breeze, but it was warm and my sinuses were acting up (I have no seasonal allergies).

As for the ban... what people do in China (and I'm sure what they'd do in Paris or London or NYC) is have two cars with even and odd plates. Or maybe you could just pay for an extra vehicle registration and have two sets of plates for one car? I know that in Austria you're allowed to get one registration for two cars, and switch the plates between them, so maybe the opposite works.

Oh, do the 1% in China--or Paris or London or Austria--flaut the law while the 99% get a lung full of carcinogenic particulate matter? How endearing! #EatThem

How about just cutting back lanes from boulevards? Less space for cars, less cars. Although I'm not sure how many of them have more than 1 car lane each way.

It could also be interesting to see how much of the smog is from the highways and arterials of the inner suburbs vs the city.

It's more than the 1%, it's every multiple car household (which in the US would be most of them). And if it were only the 1% driving private cars, there wouldn't be a pollution problem.

It's probably the older, less expensive cars that pollute more than any others (along with trucks).

Less space for cars, more congestion, more congestion, more pollution.

Note that only the City of Paris (inner city) and the innermost suburban munipality are concerned by the this ban (odd number plate cars on odd days and even number cars on even days) and it is only for this Monday.

here is an interesting bit of urban history, reminds me of this....

"The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke[1] was a severe air-pollution event that affected London during December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants mostly from the use of coal to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 to Tuesday 9 December 1952, and then dispersed quickly after a change of weather.

Although it caused major disruption due to the effect on visibility, and even penetrated indoor areas, it was not thought to be a significant event at the time, with London having experienced many smog events in the past, so-called "pea soupers". However, government medical reports in the following weeks estimated that up until 8 December 4,000 people had died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill because of the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, at about 12,000.[2]"

Doesn't work that way. See the Alaskan Viaduct or Embarcadero.

Induced demand's a bitch, but at least it works the other way 'round too ;)

I know, it has been done in Paris, while the number of cars was effectively reduced, the congestion increased.
I don't get the point to have less cars if we have more congestion.
Boulevard de Magenta redesign in Paris is a widely known as a big failure.

Paris situation is quite different of a lot of other cities.
Outside the freeways, most of the wide roads are located in the center and not in suburbs where roads are narrow (except radial roads to the center).

It would most likely lead to more congestion, though I would think the decrease in car usage would likely outweigh the effect of increased congestion. I guess both approaches have drawbacks. Could increased restrictions in parking also work?

My other point was that I was wondering how much of the smog came from the suburbs vs the city. If the city is encircled by highways and arterials creating smog, a lot of that is going to float over into the city.

Also, would the restrictions affect only residents of the city proper (plus that one other suburb) or would it also affect people travelling into the city from the suburbs?

I was surprised at how bad the smog was in Paris when I visited about 10 years ago though. Definitely significantly worse than in Toronto.

Paris sits in a valley so the pollution is often worse than you'd expect. Plus, of the 11 million people (give or take), probably 6-7 million are smoking a cigarette at any given time ;).

Does Paris have that silly e-cig ban like NYC does and are people allowed to smoke in bars?

i thought all those cheese eating surrender monkeys (relax, its from a simpsons episode) were rolling around on bicycles with floppy hats and a baguette sticking out of the back...but really, isnt half of europe still rolling around in a diesel car belching out plumes of black smoke?

This pollution is exceptional, this is due a good weather and winds coming from the more industrial east.
The situation returns to normal.
The majority of the adult (15-85) doesn't smoke in France. There are no way 6-7 million people smoking in Paris metropolitan area.
It is more like 3 million.

People are not allowed to smoke in bars and in other enclosed public space, this is including office and other workspaces except in special smoking spaces but most office buildings don't have those, thus smokers smoke outside).
Similar law is comming for e-cig.

This idea is not new. I believe Singapore used to have odd even driving days all year long at one time, if not still.

mm... Mah, it doesn't matter. Who the heck actually cares? Keep making love to your shiny car in your craphole, we've got some actual transit strategy in our Euro cities.

That's some provocation to make you think again, friend, nothing mean from me. It's from our local simpsons. :yes:

Well in Philly and most big US cities, it's actually a lot easier to use mass transit than drive lol... we have the best of both worlds, NYC has just as good a subway if not better than Paris and I've been to both cities. I take the train to college in Philly almost every day and it's fast and cost effective. Although.. it doesn't hurt to take an easy, direct luxurious ride into the city as well when I feel like it, something you cant do in most euro cities hahaha.

But to the point, none of this would be a problem if euro cities actually built useful, direct road systems that don't beg for gridlock like they do now.

id rather have floppy hats and bikes any day. america is already a real life simpsons episode! i was serious about the diesel car thing though. aren't they all over the place? and as far as i knew, paris had the lowest private car usage of any western city over a million.

I insult those crappy French diesel cars everyday. They're supposed to be fitted with filters to spare your health, but they'd actually fail in filtering all harmful particles. And they stink. I hate them. I have to breathe their crap anytime I stand on a sidewalk. I truly hate it.

Really? It may be true, though I would actually be fascinated to see this ranking.

Anyone know where we can get "% auto free households by metro" or "% transit share by metro" for cross-national comparisons? I think that would be very interesting.

My sense has always been that France has slightly lower auto usage than Germany, UK and Italy, and maybe the same or a little higher than Spain, but that's just based on a hunch.