Paris aux couleurs de l’Ukraine

`Paris is in anarchy’ [cycle woes]

An overblown view of the cycling war in Paris, from New York! I read with amusement the report on how Xing a Parisian street is a matter of life or death, when anarclists go through red lights while shouting at pedestrians… Actually, the figures show that the number of accidents involving cyclists (as victims or culprits) has only gone up by 30% when the traffic has increased by 70%. And I could not find an online trace of a pedestrian killed by a cyclist over the past years. Based on my weekly 130 kilometer biking average, mostly to and from Paris Dauphine, I do not perceive a major tension between pedestrians and cyclists, maybe because I am not entering the centre of town (and give priority to pedestrians at both green and red lights). The danger in my experience comes rather from other cyclists’ unpredictable paths, (psychopath) mopeds that run on cycle paths, and cars turning right without checking for bicycles. But I concur with the point made in this article of a poor network of cycle paths, with too many discontinuities, bad surface, inexistent maintenance (esp. in winter months when wet leaves accumulate there and all year long for broken glass and metal parts), and the deadly pavés! Which are unpleasant for road bikes (ask the Paris-Roubaix runners!), slippery, esp. when frosted (speaking from experience), and damaging to tubes and ties. As it happens, I have had thee tube punctures over the three past weeks, two of which were due to running over a particularly uneven pavé or entering a cycle path with a very high step. (And a total of six since April. Making me reconsider using an heavier mountain bike instead. After switching unsuccessfully to anti-puncture road tyres…)

innumerazione

While vacationing in Corsica, I spotted this poster all over town (Bastia). About the weight of recycled garbage in Corsica. Its congratulation smelled somewhat fishy and trying to argue the point with my family I looked at what it meant in meaningful units….

Since the weight of 8 Eiffel Towers is about 80,000 tons and there are about 340,000 people residing in Corsica, this means 235kg are recycled by an average Corsican (if the figure does not include agriculture, industry, and service recycling). Which sounds close to the national figures, when considering the average 580kg of personal garbage produced by the average French. However, this statistic does not account for the likely impact of tourists (like us) on the figures. Considering that there are about 3 million tourists visiting Corsica every year, with [the conservative figure of] an average stay of one week, assuming that they recycle as well, the figure per inhabitant gets down. (This impact can also be spotted in the raw [!] figures per month, which are triple in August, when the majority of tourists is visiting, than in March.) Hence the figure is not so conclusive…

heart of Paris

Fourvière [jatp]