Bicycle Scenes from Paris
Paris has been getting a lot of press about its bicycle infrastructure for many years now… And for good reason… They’ve been pretty busy… Never having been there before, it was time to take in the sights and some of the bike infrastructure that gets you there…
Day 1: Sleep Deprived Walk to the Centre
With a flight connection through Paris, we opted to stay a few days and see what all the fuss is about. We arrived in Paris at 8 a.m. with little sleep and would have three nights there to get over jet lag before the next leg of the trip. We took the train from the airport toward the centre and switched to the metro system to get us close to our hotel. Navigating the various walkways to get to the Magenta metro platform from Gare du Nord…
The metro arrives in its pastel hues…
We pop out on the surface at Porte Maillot. At this stage, I’ve seen good things on the internet, but with no research prior, I had no real idea of the extents of the bicycle infrastructure...
But here at least… We are immediately confronted by protected bike lanes on the exit from the metro, and just beyond them a tram line. This is a good sign…
This street has an interesting history looking back in time. Back in 2008, it featured centre-running bike lanes from at least 2008 until 2018 with a travel lane and parking lane either side in each direction. Then, seemingly for a year, no bike lanes, albeit maybe just prepping for tram construction which was ongoing as late as 2023. The road used to also be paved in asphalt, but now features pavers that make you think it was always this way…
The tram line has this interesting trough for want of a better word… I can only assume as a very harsh lesson for any car drivers that choose to use the tram tracks, but which would also inadvertently stop emergency vehicles from using this space to bypass any congestion in the one-vehicle lane…
We stayed at the outer edge of the 17th arrondissement, or district effectively, just outside the motorway that forms a ring around the city, and the limits of the city proper, approximately 4.5 kilometres from what I’d call the centre of Paris, i.e., the Louvre area. We walk north along the Boulevard Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, which sits at a slightly different grade, separate by a small chamfered curb…
As we approach Avenue des Ternes, we stumble across the Canadian Embassy (Pub) and a docked bike-share station. Paris removed shared scooters from its streets, but still has multiple bike-share services available, including docked and dockless… More on that later…
At the intersection with Avenue des Ternes, a protected corner manages trips between crossing bike facilities… Note warning and directional TWSI’s, also chamfered curbs or very small barrier curbs that mean no chance of catching pedals while still defining space…
Everybody loves when the tram tracks run through grass…
This interesting bicycle tractor/trailer configuration went by us…
A raised crosswalk with a signal, a combination I’m not a fan of. It feels like this is my space - not quite as much as if it were a continuous sidewalk - but because the grade is the same, I still felt like I have some priority and can just walk across…
The bike lanes take on a more quick-build form, it seems, using asphalt that previously was for motor vehicles. Albeit the stone dividers make them seem less quick-build and more like they’ve been there forever. Compared with Canada, they don’t provide the freshly poured concrete look that makes it easy to tell new infrastructure in Canada…
Like many places, the challenges of vehicles stopping in the bike lanes also exist in Paris…
We drop our bags at the hotel and take a sleep-deprived walk into the centre to explore… A few things that appear along the way include little island curb extensions, contraflow bike lanes on a one-way street, spots to park bike-share bikes…
We walk past parked cars occupying a bit too much of the adjacent sidewalk, and cross the ring road around Paris that pretty much defines the city limits…
I’m pretty sure the bike share bikes don’t have stunt pegs to stand on the back… But the shocking thing in this photo is the expanse of asphalt in the intersection… It’s mad!
We make our way up Avenue de la Grande Armée, that is essentially the other side of the Champs-Élysées, with less fancy stores on this street and frontage roads to get that pesky parking out of the way… The bike lanes still feature the Paris 2024 pavement markings…
Shared bikes lie either discarded or maybe hit by cars backing up. There are no shared scooters in Paris anymore after a public vote saw them banned, some articles say due to a few deaths that occurred, but other suggest simply reckless use of them. That raises two thoughts: We see these headlines all the time for scooters and bikes, but not for cars? And also, maybe the city needed safer and more dedicated bike and scooter infrastructure... And based on my experience trying to use crosswalks, maybe some more patient drivers…
Between the Avenue de la Grande Armée and the Champs-Élysées lies the Arc de Triomphe. More on that later, but right now, we watch a few people running for their lives to cross over to the famous landmark in the centre of this huge multi-lane (if it had lane markings) roundabout…
We soon realize the only legitimate way to get to the Arc de Triomphe is through the tunnels under the roundabout that either pop you out in the centre or on the Champs Élysées. Whilst in the centre, we see more people running across the roundabout! It is possible to walk around the perimeter, but it’s a long way with numerous signalized crossings.
After a quick look at the Arc, we pop out onto the Champs-Élysées… Bus advertising seems fitting for what is essentially a fancy designer shopping street…
If you hadn’t noticed by now, there’s not a lot of hi-viz clothing present in Paris… At least not your typical hi-viz…
The bike lane pavers and granite dividers make it look like the bike lanes have been here forever, but they appeared around 2019. One obvious thing is that bike share is incredibly well used, perhaps more so than personal bikes, and by all sectors of society it seems. There were at least three providers including Lime and Dott that are lockless, but with designated parking, and Vélib’, which is a docked system. Interesting to see them all co-existing…
Personal e-scooters still in use…
It’s a busy old street… I understand there are plans to reallocate more space from cars to people…
I love the metro entrances… Or the signs, more specifically…
We begin the tour of grand buildings…
Nope… I’ll take a protected intersection and a two-stage left turn please…
They must have had a surplus of gold at some point…
We walk along the Seine for a bit, which is fine, but not the busy pedestrian scenes I’ve seen online, so we head back toward the Louvre via the Rue de Rivoli - thanks for the tip, Scott - a street that back in 2018/2019 had four congested lanes of traffic, and now has just one with very wide protected bike lanes… The amount of space reallocation on what were congested streets is really the highlight of Paris, so far at least…
Turning around from the scene above, it all turns to madness… For some reason, at the west end, the one-lane of cars cuts across the bike lane… It looked like they were still removing Olympic stands nearby… Hopefully, this is temporary or some changes are coming here soon… No excuse really with so much space to play with…
At about this point, our minds and bodies gave in, and we caught the metro back to the hotel… Unlike the stations we went through earlier that day, this station had screens and doors on the platform…
Day 2: Time to Ride Bicycles
Of course, we were up early and out just as the sun was coming up… This is a shared bus and bike lane…
We didn’t bring the Bromptons this time. Given this trip would have a lot more travelling, they would become more of a hindrance than a help, so we headed over to the pile of shared bikes next to the hotel and procured a couple of bikes to get back into the centre… This painted bike lane features an interesting door zone treatment… I’m not sure if this van is in a designated car parking spot or a spot for something else… It’s certainly encroaching on that door zone a bit…
At this floating bus stop, the bike lane is raised up to the same grade as the platform with a reasonably abrupt ramp. With drainage following the road grade, there is a trench drain along the old curb to capture water running off the platform and bike lane…
In the centre, we found a place to park the bikes and pick up our walk where we left off yesterday… Don’t worry, we left our bikes upright… Note the basic but bold velorue pavement markings for bicycle street… No mistaking who has priority on this street…
Back on Rue de Rivoli and it’s super quiet early on this Sunday morning…
I was more interested in the Louvre itself than what’s inside… Even better if there are people biking by this iconic architecture…
Crossing back over the Rue de Rivoli to get some breakfast…
People transporting their kids around to Sunday morning activities…
After breakfast, we found a bike rental place and got a couple of regular bikes for the day… Or at least that was the plan… After a few minutes of riding, I felt the seat could be a bit higher. Stopping to adjust it, the seat post was barely in the frame, and I ended up lowering the seat to avoid a potentially horrible injury… It’ll be fine I thought, but it was about to be a very uncomfortable ride for a few hours… We soon stopped at the signs you see on the image below left, an interesting in-your-face modal filter of sorts… that sits opposite a busy pedestrian street…
Another one of those fantastic Metro signs…
Then a busy protected bike lane and intersection between Boulevard de Sébastopol and Rue de Turbigo, also featuring those Paris 2024 pavement markings… I didn’t get a photo, but the bike signals are set back behind the crosswalks so you wait on a red all the way back rather than in the protected corner… Removing a little bit of efficiency as they need more time to cross the intersection and clear it… If I’d paid attention while there, I would have waited to see how people actually use this intersection and where they wait…
At the south end of Boulevard de Sébastopol, we cross over toward Notre Dame in a centre-running somewhat protected bike lane… Protected from general traffic on one side, but not the bus lane on the other side…
Notre Dame… Presumably still undergoing repairs from the fire that occurred in 2019… And someone riding by, of course… Although it is not obvious from this photo, this is another protected bike lane on Quai de Montebello this time…
We followed Quai de Montebello for a bit before the pain of the uncomfortable and far too low saddle got too much. Turning around at the Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir bridge that has both lower and higher connections at each end with this wave configuration. Thanks again for the recommendation, Scott. I’m sure there’s better photos possible here, but the pain was distracting me from the task at hand…
Maybe, enthused at the decision to turn back toward the centre, I actually really liked the next bridge on the way back, the Pont de Bercy bridge, which has this centre-running bike lane with vehicle lanes either side of those pillars, but also an elevated section of metro line above… It was a popular spot for photographers…
On our way back, we encountered our first of the converted car tunnels that are now essentially underground active transportation corridors… And what you might think would be super creepy, seems to be a fun place to take the kids…
This leads us on to the one thing I was probably most aware of… The pedestrianization of the Seine roadway, which is now comparable to the sea wall in Vancouver… Amazing to see…
There are some cafes or bars along the way…
Then we were back into another tunnel… If you ever find yourself renting one of these orange bikes, just make sure you check the fit first…
With no real idea where we’d reappear on the surface, I was surprised to pop out by the Louvre gardens, and noticed this quick-build boulevard protected bike lane of sorts… Another neat little thing Scott had pointed out from his trip…
Handing the bikes back, we overheard another couple talking about a mall nearby with a rooftop viewpoint… This quick-build protected intersection lay immediately outside of the entrance… Simple and effective…
And that rooftop viewpoint also gave me a different view of it…
This pedestrian priority street climbs up to Montmartre, the 18th district up on a hill… A great place to hone your scooting skills…
Café with a view at the end of this street…
Contraflow protected bike lane back down the hill… Biking up to the top of the hill would have been the best way to get up there…
On the way back with pretty sore feet, there were still a few interesting things… A signalized roundabout with protected bike lane elements… And then, around the corner, another series of those diagonal sharrows making left turns by bike super safe…
And a little further along, a gas pump at the side of the road… Never seen that before… and I also liked these little bus stop flags with real-time information…
Day 3: Should Probably See the Eiffel Tower
We begin watching traffic and bikes out of the apartment window on the road that defines the boundary of Paris, watching drivers almost right-hook people biking and scooting and giving pedestrians literally an inch as they cross on the walk signal…
We took a walk to a nearby park, but there wasn’t much of interest to photograph there… Grabbed a couple of bike-share bikes, and then immediately swapped one out, and headed toward the Eiffel Tower, stopping for some lunch on the way… If you look closely at the road surface here, it appears to have partially filled/sealed with asphalt or some kind of crack-sealing type mixture, something they seem to be undoing as they upgrade streets and restore them with pavers…
Must be a separated bike lane… Amongst two one-way roads with three parking lanes from what I can tell…
We made it to the Eiffel Tower, and to be honest, the con artists with their cups put a bit of a downer on the whole area. You’d think it would be easier to get rid of them than cars along the Seine…
An impressive structure no doubt, but much better from a distance…
We walked back through the centre, stopping for a prolonged period to watch the madness that is the Arc de Triomphe… Never mind the Arc in the centre… What you might not realize is that it’s a 12-leg roundabout where, unconventionally, cars entering have right of way over those in the roundabout, and apparently, this is the only place in Paris where if there is a collision, everyone is equally at fault… I wouldn’t really fancy driving around this in a car, never mind on a bicycle…
That was pretty much our three days up in Paris…
Day 4: Heading Further East
We were up early to head to the airport, and I had figured going back the same way we came, but one app is telling me there is a train strike and that we should take a tram and then a bus… So we did that and got to the airport in plenty of time with no issues… Paris was a great stopover, and it was really interesting to see firsthand the changes there.
Perhaps the most important lesson from Paris is not one of street design, but the political will and bravery to reallocate so much space from cars to people. As I write this blog post, they have just announced further major restrictions on cars traveling through the centre, following the Groningen model, you might say… It’s a model every big city should think about…
Next stop… Belgrade, Serbia…