While this is nice, I do not really see any places where one can now cross the street?
Some cut-outs for pedestrians would probably be helpful for people who need to access a building on the other side.
Rue du Dr Paquelin was pedestrianized so crosswalks arenât really needed.
I donât mean crosswalks, I mean places where people can cut through the greenery to get to the âroadâ.
As it stands now I donât see a way for people to actually get to the other side of the street.
Maybe they exist, but I donât see them in the pictureâŚ
Oh, I see what you mean. Youâre right, if thereâs a path through the bushes itâs not obvious.
You mean like access front doors of buildings? It looks like they block everything.
Yeah. Iâd do more little islands instead, which would also give space for other stuff, like benches or other seating areas, bike racks, etc.
Definitely agreed. Strictly better than cars, but there has to be something weâre missing here, else this is a huuuge pain in the ass for literally no reason.
I have to disagree. Amenities such as benchs, and playgrounds can be place into the next street but there is a need to add important vegetation at least in some streets of dense urban environment to deal with heat wave and flood issues.
The problem isnât the vegetation; itâs the lack of outlets to the other side of the road amid the vegetation. From the perspective shown here, itâs a solid 40-ish meters until the next entrance to the sidewalk.
I keep seeing photos of urban renovation in countries other than my own and marveling at the fact that even the âbeforeâ photo looks better than most streets in my city.
Over 20 years ago I moved from my native Portugal to The Netherlands.
Then over time Iâve moved backwards in this - in the sense of moving to countries with progressivelly worse urban planning and increasing pro-vehicle mindsets - first to Britain, then back to Portugal.
Itâs pretty infuriating when you actually know first hand how it feels to live in a place that doesnât put cars uber alles and are now living in one where its painfully obvious in everything from urban planning to how drivers tend to break mostly the rules that are there to protect pedestrians, that youâre in a society which at least in this has a mindset from 40 years ago.
You donât even need to go live somewhere else; just visit.
Iâm from Canada and went back to visit Germany and Belgium a few months ago. I already went to Germany and the Netherlands a few years ago and just used the trains. I had no fixed itinerary and was deciding where to go a day in advance before buying a train ticket to go there. It was obviously fine (most of the time) but because of how trains âworkâ here, I was anxious about buying tickets a day in advance, thinking it was âlast minuteâ.
Then while I was in Belgium I had to plan a train ride in Canada a week later, and there was no affordable tickets left. I was sitting in Liège, and just bought a train ticket to Bruxelles that was departing in the next hour⌠while trying to book a train a week in advance in Canada, and failing to do so.
Every time I have to use a train in Canada, or just any kind or intercity service, even a coach, Iâm painfully reminded of how bad it is here.
This is Haussmannien architecture, it looks pretty and unfiform because the prefect of Napoleon III in the 19th century got the permission to destroy most of the shitty medieval districts with poor people inside and build good looking housing with modern accomodations for rich people instead. Thatâs largely why Paris is pretty today.
Interesting, I didnât know that.
I mean, it also has to be a little bit because they didnât let the car companies demolish the whole city and replace it with parking lots in the 1960s, right?
Well, yeah nobody would thought to destroy this kind of valuable architecture for parking. We did get some aweful towers in other districts though, like Montparnasse tower.
I wanna punch the voice that says âbut wonât the homeless sleep in the bushes?â
Iâm a bush.
This looks great, but I feel like the trees might become a problem to the adjacent buildings when they mature, unless theyâre the type of trees that only grow tall and skinny?
Not every tree essence grows as much as oak. I know some linden trees, older than I am, that were pruned properly one or twice a year and have kept a manageable size. I think hackberry tree donât get much thick with time and there essences of tree that are chosen to be put in the street because they donât grow that much in European climate.
It took two years to do the transformation. Do you think itâll be difficult to do another transformation when the time comes?
Dude, there are whole industries based on cutting down trees once they have grown.
What are you smoking? ⌠can I have some?
Street trees are trimmed regularly in France when itâs needed. People enjoy to see the green and the added privacy when it reaches their windows.
Id be worried about the roots fucking up the sidewalk and foundations not the greenery.
I have seen it happen with old trees, but I think now they have either species or techniques to avoid that. Trees in streets are very common in France, itâs not a recent thing. Thereâs even a specific term for streets with trees: âavenueâ, although many people use it without knowing.
Were I live there is a tendency to put trees in holes (about 1m wide) on the road side of the sidewalk - which puts them at least 1m away from the houses, generally more - and unless they get really tall (20m + tall) their roots are only really a problem for the sidewalk itself (which gets raised and bumpy) and even in this it depends on the kind of tree (so, for example, pine or oak are a problem but not orange trees).
I donât remember even seeing even the kind of brick wall that might surround a property cracked due to such nearby trees, much less actual buildings. Mind you, buildings over here are made of brick and concrete and have actual foundations.
Letting cars into cities was a mistake from the beginning. Cars should be required to park on parking lots or garages at the edge of the city. The only large motorized vehicles allowed within cities should be trains, buses driven by professional drivers, and delivery vehicles limited by governors to the speed of a bicycle. The only forms of motorized personal transit allowed should be e-bikes and scooters that can travel no faster than a human-powered bicycle is capable of traveling. Cars should be used only for getting between towns and cities, not for traveling within them.
![[Misc] Less parking more green evolution in a Parisian street(jlai.lu)](https://jlai.lu/pictrs/image/b287d811-fc24-4f77-a20d-7a52f5d7dc1c.jpeg){kind=link}