Street Cycling in Paris

I’ve been attending a WordPress conference while hanging out in France the past couple of days and one of the great joys of this setup has been the opportunity to join the citizenry of Paris in their everyday bicycling.  This great, ancient city is an amazing place to ride bicycles — and this has nothing to do with the normal American associations: you know, the ones that generally oscillate between images of the tour de France and scenes from various movies featuring black-baret’d, baguette-laden persons pedaling antique bikes down cobblestone streets.  The reason biking here is so great is that people here know how to do it, and the other users of the road — cars, taxis, buses, etc etc — accept that cyclists have just as much right to space as they do.  (Someone also told me that the penalties for hitting cyclists are particularly harsh here, so maybe there’s that.)

I’ve done a small ride out to the suburbs (Versaille) and back, and also spent time riding to and from the conference, which is about 1/2 hour from where I’m staying.  Here’s a short video (cheesy music and captions — sorry) that gives you an idea of what riding here on the street is like:

Some basic observations about all this controlled chaos:

• cyclists are given space, but also expected to take it.  You’ll note that frequently 1/3 – 1/2 of the entire road is reserved for buses and bicycles.  This both advantages these modes of transport and gives bikes a legitimacy on the road that does not disappear when the lane does.  There are many roads in France (superhighways etc) where bikes are forbidden, but everywhere else it’s assumed they’re welcome and that they will ride like the have a right to be there.
• In Paris (except maybe for a few hours during the night) it’s almost always faster to bicycle anywhere within a few miles than drive.  This is for the obvious reasons of parking and automobile congestion, but it also would not be so without lots of good infrastructure.
• Parisian motorists are used to being in close proximity to bikes at all times  — there’s no crazy panic-gripping of the steering wheel like you see in Seattle or any sense of irritation when you pass close to a motorist to advance to a light.
• One way that this hangs together is that people here drive and cycle with predictability in mind.  First, everyone maneuvers with a certain amount (not too much, not too little) of aggression/initiative.  If there is empty space to be occupied in front of a vehicle, or a clear right of way, one is expected to advance (O Seattle how you could learn from this.)  Also, drivers here seem to observe a bargain whereby they focus on the space in front of them more intently than the space to either side or behind.  Trouble only happens when someone (bicycle, bus, garbage truck, car) makes a sudden change in direction that has no discernible purpose.  Lane changes here are rather unusual, and there is an emphasis on maintaining the flow of traffic above all else.  Roads, after all, are meant to travel forward on.
• One of the first jobs of a cyclist when observing the patterns of a new city is to determine how religiously cyclists are expected to observe stoplights etc … here, the answer is: not very.  It’s actually somewhat more dangerous in my estimation to stop at a Parisian red if there’s clearly no traffic in ahead than it is to proceed through it.  Riding too conservatively might result in another bike ramming into your rear wheel, or at least an irritated commuter.
• If cyclists here appear to be fearless, that’s because they actually have little to fear.  You don’t see people here wearing armor plating or special clothes, flat shoes (see video above — the badass woman high heels appears at about 2:00) or even a helmet (!) to ride a bike.  It’s such a part of Parisian life that it’s expected you will be able to ride your bike in whatever outfit you’re wearing anyway, and transporting whatever musical instrument, piece of equipment or child you need to haul from one place to another.

I wish I could bring a huge slice of this way of thinking about cycling back to Seattle with me (and perhaps the lack of hills too — Paris is pretty flat.)  I will in any case enjoy riding while I’m here.