On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution. But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable
Replies
Meanwhile making one new bike lane in Seattle is a "war on cars" 🙄
aug 30, 2025, 1:27 am • 28 1 • view
Same here in Aotearoa/NZ. One of our major cities is REMOVING bicycle lanes 😳. Dinosaurs at the helm… www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3607...
aug 30, 2025, 3:06 am • 9 0 • view
We should declare war on cars. After all, they've been waging war on us for decades.
aug 30, 2025, 1:32 pm • 2 0 • view
Weird thing is, you don’t hear a lot of Parisians say this…
aug 30, 2025, 7:37 pm • 0 0 • view
My neighbour in his lifted truck is very worried where he will park in downtown Regina if the downtown area is less than 50% parking lots (no joke, it's around 50% parking lots)
aug 30, 2025, 1:35 am • 26 0 • view
Jesus Christ, Regina That's just ridiculous
aug 30, 2025, 7:14 am • 0 0 • view
😳
aug 30, 2025, 3:06 am • 0 0 • view
“50% parking lots, eh? That can’t possibly be right. Here, let me pull up a satellite image, and… fuck me sideways!”
aug 30, 2025, 5:49 am • 18 4 • view
Sorry it was 46%. Although we got one more pretty sizable one added so gotta be close to 50. Another parking structure is being demolished... But will be replaced with a new surface lot. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
aug 30, 2025, 5:59 am • 12 0 • view
Part of the problem in #yqr is the small town mentality that there should always be free parking 3' from the door of where people want to do. Downtown has sooo much parking. Poor land use because we don't charge enough property tax. #CarCulture #Autobesity
aug 30, 2025, 1:38 pm • 8 0 • view
Regina should embrace making green spaces as part of car parks like Singapore
aug 30, 2025, 2:12 pm • 4 0 • view
Car pollution and vehicle deaths are as American as school shootings, nothing can be done to change it’s just part of our culture.
aug 30, 2025, 11:37 am • 4 0 • view
This! Even with congestion pricing, which helps, there are times and streets in NYC that scream: Why is anyone allowed to drive a car into Manhattan?
aug 30, 2025, 11:46 am • 1 0 • view
aug 30, 2025, 12:47 pm • 5 0 • view
Is this reductions in car use, or primarily phase-in of diesel NOx standards and the broader phase out of diesel cars post dieselgate?
aug 30, 2025, 1:13 am • 0 0 • view
Unless of course you need to get somewhere in a reasonable time frame. Then, you know, not so great. But there are ev's that work just fine.
aug 30, 2025, 6:33 pm • 0 0 • view
That is great to hear! Paris is such a beautiful city, but when I was there years ago, I really couldn't stand the horrible traffic everywhere. Sounds like it's worth a revisit now!
aug 30, 2025, 5:17 pm • 0 0 • view
It's a dilemma isn't it?
aug 30, 2025, 1:26 am • 1 0 • view
but what has it done for me lately? Me, specifically, someone who would benefit greatly from these outcomes but for some reason hates clean air and livable climate???
aug 31, 2025, 12:40 am • 1 0 • view
This is all Pie in the Sky if your Old or Disabled
aug 30, 2025, 10:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Paris needs to eliminate as many cars as possible. A weird weather phenomenon can occur where a cloud of smog just sits on the city for days on end. This is a view of the Eiffel Tower in 2015 from the Tour Montparnasse observation deck.
aug 30, 2025, 6:31 pm • 0 0 • view
aug 31, 2025, 1:07 am • 0 0 • view
Wait, someone tell New York City that residents can just ignore suburban commuters and “car owners associations” when they complain about bullshit!
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 20 0 • view
There’s a plan to connect Prospect Park with Grand Army Plaza to turn a snarled mess of car pavement into a continuous, literally monumental green space. It would take a couple years to put in, but the timeline is 15-20 because of worry about driver backlash and it’s so frustratingly weak-kneed!
aug 30, 2025, 2:51 pm • 14 0 • view
Wow, this makes me want to go back to Paris!
aug 30, 2025, 12:48 am • 0 0 • view
Does Bezos know they’re writing something so MAGA unfriendly?
aug 30, 2025, 2:35 pm • 0 0 • view
Fewer cars on the road is actually better for car owners, because they're less likely to get into an accident.
aug 30, 2025, 3:29 am • 14 0 • view
I have some car owning friends who just cannot grasp this idea, and demand of me to explain that if we take two of the six lanes of the stroad for bike lanes, how will they get to work on time?
aug 30, 2025, 1:30 pm • 7 0 • view
It's the same for car owners who are against public transport, even though one bus gets over 10 cars off the road. If these people had to choose between their happiness and other people's misery, they'd pick the latter every time.
aug 30, 2025, 1:35 pm • 8 0 • view
100%. And some of them, their lives would be so much easier if they took transit, but you will not catch them on a bus with us unwashed peasants if their lives depended on it, so why would anyone else use it?
aug 30, 2025, 1:37 pm • 5 0 • view
Ah, but have you considered that it means everyone has to awkwardly avoid making eye contact with each other on public transit, instead of fantasizing about killing each other in rush hour traffic?
aug 30, 2025, 1:11 am • 44 3 • view
@citycastportland.bsky.social Reason enough to raise parking rates downtown.
aug 30, 2025, 12:47 am • 1 0 • view
I for one would love to be able to just walk to work. I legit hate driving. People are dicks.
aug 31, 2025, 5:06 pm • 0 0 • view
But, but, but, I need my Silverado to drive 2 km for groceries.
aug 31, 2025, 3:34 am • 0 0 • view
Surely coincidental to Euro 5/6 rules implementation
aug 30, 2025, 2:03 pm • 0 0 • view
But what about when I need to escape from criminals while speeding to the hospital outrunning a tidal wave during a winter road trip to the moon while I have pneumonia? You expect me to ride the BUS?!?
aug 30, 2025, 12:59 am • 137 0 • view
It’s Paris. Prendre le Métro.
aug 30, 2025, 1:39 am • 36 0 • view
Paris metro goes to the moon? In the winter?!?
aug 30, 2025, 8:27 pm • 0 0 • view
All year round. It's a two-minute walk from the Place de la Nation.
aug 30, 2025, 11:31 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes! The Paris metro is so cool! Honestly, they should do a chase scene in a move, where the spies are hopping on and off at metro stops, but the hero knows the network so well he's cuts them off at the final destination. Free idea for anyone who want's to write that screenplay -- it's yours.
aug 30, 2025, 6:38 pm • 8 0 • view
Not to mention taking your agèd grandmother to a medical visit while also carrying 200 pounds of concrete in the trunk. Totally something people need to do on a regular basis!
aug 30, 2025, 2:05 pm • 2 0 • view
If what Paris lost cannot be found preserved in the Louvre it is at least preserved in a GIF.
aug 30, 2025, 12:30 pm • 5 0 • view
Just visited Paris after 15 years not doing so. It is a transformed city. Or at least the centre. There is a problem, though. Housing is expensive.
aug 30, 2025, 6:18 am • 5 0 • view
Would have been expensive anyway
aug 30, 2025, 8:28 am • 3 0 • view
My point is about carbon emissions. If you want cheaper, go by coach. Regularly from Victoria Coach station. But if you have the means, please choose the lowest carbon option. In this case, the electric train. There may be delays... But hey, aeroplanes are always on time and are never cancelled.
aug 30, 2025, 8:46 am • 0 0 • view
First of all the motorcycle traffic is out of bounds. Second, not sure I would say Parisians have given up their cars.
aug 30, 2025, 6:47 pm • 0 0 • view
Most Americans: *near death, choking on unbreathable air* it was all worth it
aug 30, 2025, 10:54 am • 2 0 • view
I wish to see a world without need of private cars.
aug 30, 2025, 8:15 pm • 0 0 • view
But I bet they don’t have troops on the street like we do
aug 30, 2025, 6:31 pm • 0 0 • view
📌
aug 30, 2025, 1:57 am • 0 0 • view
But then how can the poor billionaire car manufacturers owners and especially all the gas industry billionaires? They can't profit off of polluting the planet anymore! Why nobody thinks of the poor billionaire
aug 30, 2025, 10:03 am • 6 0 • view
You know what they have in Europe that makes it easier to ditch cars? PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION THAT IS RELIABLE
aug 30, 2025, 8:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Why aren't dems running on modernizing everything? We're so far behind the rest of the world. The language around modernizing cities involves creating jobs for everyone at every level, cleaner air and water for all of us, more money going around the city in general and happier people!
aug 30, 2025, 8:36 pm • 1 0 • view
On the other other hand, car dealership owners have a lot of liquid cash they can pour into campaign donations. Seriously, that's a HUGE problem with state and local politics. Robert James Ritchie's a.k.a. Kid Rocks dad owned car dealerships and was very involved in politics. (cont)
aug 30, 2025, 1:59 pm • 2 0 • view
It's why local governments are more likely to make parking requirements for all new buildings and approve funding for more traffic lanes than they are to make cities walkable, increase public transit budgets or create community greenspaces.
aug 30, 2025, 2:01 pm • 2 0 • view
www.threads.com/@cyclinginst...
sep 2, 2025, 11:58 am • 0 0 • view
But with all that clean air, you're just leaving room for the pollen! D:
aug 31, 2025, 1:58 am • 0 0 • view
Paris is colorful as fuck. No wonder those people paint so good.
aug 30, 2025, 1:21 am • 2 0 • view
One thing that strikes me whenever I hate read NextDoor (SF) is that a lot of drivers have no idea how much shittier the presence of cars makes everything for everyone else
aug 30, 2025, 2:26 am • 25 0 • view
Presence of that many cars makes everything shittier also for the drivers and car owners.
aug 31, 2025, 6:24 am • 1 0 • view
Yes, that's the real irony here. And they tend to think of "traffic" as something external to them, but it's really just themselves multiplied.
aug 31, 2025, 12:37 pm • 1 0 • view
I wish London could be like this. But the screaming would be deafening.
aug 31, 2025, 8:32 am • 0 0 • view
Yes, but unfortunately everyone’s mental and physical health improves.
aug 30, 2025, 1:50 am • 49 1 • view
We REALLY can’t afford that.
aug 30, 2025, 2:33 am • 10 0 • view
"... levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) have decreased 55 percent since 2005..." I have to point out that particulates, a form of pollution that kills millions annually, are mostly from tires, road wear, and brakes. You can't reduce it this much just by converting to EVs
aug 30, 2025, 1:26 pm • 10 0 • view
My saying things like the above is why I'm on the EV FUD Blocklist, "A list of folks spreading FUD about EVs, likely a result of the fossil fuel industry seven figure social media buy." No, I'm just a plain socialistic car hater.
aug 30, 2025, 1:26 pm • 9 0 • view
Ugh. There is no uncertainty or doubt about the damage EVs do. Especially to the people EV drivers hit.
aug 30, 2025, 1:35 pm • 5 0 • view
A weird aspect of our democracy is how often we fail to do broadly good, popular things because of a belligerently vocal minority. NYC congestion pricing another example I think there is huge opportunity here
aug 30, 2025, 6:38 pm • 2 0 • view
“An urban policy based on well being” Wha?!? What is this craziness!!
aug 30, 2025, 1:18 am • 13 0 • view
I love explaining this to fellow Americans and getting the response, "That would be great but we're not Europe." God damn it, do you think Europe sprang from the head of Gaia with pedestrian infrastructure fully formed?? These things are the result of policy decisions everywhere.
aug 30, 2025, 1:17 am • 141 9 • view
I wonder what policy decisions have affected transportation infrastructure in the US…🤷🏾♀️
aug 30, 2025, 2:54 am • 24 0 • view
Certainly not a multi million dollar campaign to create the concept of "jaywalking" where it's actually the irresponsible pedestrian who's at fault for getting run over.
aug 30, 2025, 12:42 pm • 15 0 • view
Well, Europe had pedestrian infrastructure for millennia before cars were invented. Tens of millions of people in the US live in suburbs built from the 1950s on around "If you don't have a car, then get fucked." So cleaning that up will be more difficult. Not impossible, though.
aug 30, 2025, 1:31 pm • 2 0 • view
The best solution is to rip out each and every car park you have in US city centers, use the freed space to build dense, mix-use, well connected neighborhoods, and when the city centers become attractive, rich and lively again, you'll see the suburbs drain out just like magic
aug 30, 2025, 2:01 pm • 5 0 • view
That involves getting most American white people to get over their mind-bending fear of living within half a mile of any Black person. That fear is what FOX News feeds, and why Trump won the 2016 GOP nomination despite spending less on it than Bloomberg spent on any of his NYC mayoral races.
sep 1, 2025, 9:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I was in Paris last week. I physically felt my lungs expelling mucous throughout my stay. I breathed easier and wasn't wheezing by the end of the week. I lived in the desert a few years ago after years in NYC. My breathing pattern completely changed. Fresh clean air is a wonderful thing.
aug 30, 2025, 3:04 pm • 2 0 • view
And on the other hand, it didn’t stop the crazy Parisian Drivers from driving like a maniac 😆
aug 30, 2025, 1:12 am • 1 0 • view
the worst thing: it is cheaper! Definitely cannot afford it /s
aug 30, 2025, 1:03 am • 45 0 • view
You know what else reduces air pollution? Forcing cars to not exceed the speed limit.
aug 30, 2025, 2:23 am • 32 0 • view
Many people are saying
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 am • 34 0 • view
Paris has a huge network of variable speed limits where they lower it in times of high pollution. Don’t know how effective the enforcement is.
aug 30, 2025, 6:33 pm • 3 1 • view
Nice. That is so obviously good and yet so aspirational to even imagine here.
aug 30, 2025, 6:38 pm • 1 0 • view
If I didn't need my steel hamster wheel of death, I would gladly get rid of it. The suburb has to be one of the worst American inventions. Yes you can have your own grass, but you'll need a car to get everywhere and spend your Saturday in a car buying food and stuff 😵💫
aug 30, 2025, 6:42 pm • 0 0 • view
on the third hand, infrastructure savings, especially in older cities with cobblestone or brick streets
aug 30, 2025, 12:49 am • 68 1 • view
This is Belgian block erasure 😁
aug 30, 2025, 12:55 am • 9 0 • view
Yes, but won’t someone think of the cranky 82 year old retired stockbroker/landlords who inherited their rent controlled apartments forever ago and have nothing but time to show up at public meetings and call the media to complain?
aug 30, 2025, 1:14 pm • 6 0 • view
I thought the images on the left were retinal injuries
aug 30, 2025, 2:09 am • 13 0 • view
I've visited Paris frequently. I was there last December, and it hit me how incredibly dense the city was (it is the by far the densest large city in Europe), but nonetheless, it works incredibly well. All those people living in small spaces (by U.S. standards,) and life can be delightful.
aug 30, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Having driven down that road very often many years ago i can tell you the trafic was FAR worse on average than what the first picture shows.
aug 30, 2025, 8:27 am • 11 0 • view
Love these images where 90% of the difference is clearly the totally different weather conditions. I am not disputing that the Seine is better now, I just find the image funny
aug 30, 2025, 5:44 am • 12 0 • view
The actual colour of the city completely changed once they got rid of cars.
aug 30, 2025, 6:34 pm • 2 0 • view
No I'm pretty sure urban policy made the river reflect the sun like one thousand thousand brilliant stars
aug 30, 2025, 2:15 pm • 4 0 • view
From drab to fab 💅
aug 30, 2025, 2:32 am • 22 0 • view
BRAVO!
sep 3, 2025, 1:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Brava
aug 30, 2025, 1:31 am • 0 0 • view
But car companies don't make money, so all in all a bad idea
aug 30, 2025, 12:45 am • 10 1 • view
One of my favorite parts of the pandemic was when the earth started healing herself because we weren’t polluting (commuting) so much 🥹🥰
aug 30, 2025, 2:27 am • 9 0 • view