An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
WE ARE WHAT WE HONOUR
Scot Bathgate in Auckland picked up on this indicator of culture:
“This is the mentality here. Can you image celebrating something like this?”
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FREEWAY REMOVAL – PARIS
From Preservation Institute, 2007:
Paris-Plage was more popular than anyone had expected: it attracted 600,000 visitors on the first day alone, and it attracted 2 million visitors during the entire time that the freeway was closed and the beach was open. Le Monde commented that the operation ‘silenced critics from the municipal right, strengthened the good image of the mayor of Paris, and … was a true popular success’.
Because of this success, the summer closure of the Pompidou Expressway to create Paris-Plage has become a regular yearly event, and the city government began talking about a complete closure of the expressway.
In 2007, Delanoë unveiled a dramatic plan to cut automobile use in Paris by 40% and to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60%.This new plan would create a network of ‘civilized thoroughfares’ that give priority to buses and bicycles, would extend tramways, would create a new suburban commuter train line, and would pedestrianise the banks of the Seine entirely, removing the Pompidou Expressway. ….
Given Pompidou’s own pro-freeway bias, the final irony would be to remove the freeway and to create a pedestrian waterfront named Pompidou Park.”
