My visit to Paris this time has been much different from previous trips to this great City of Lights.

In the past my time was spent trying to see as many of the wonderful sights and museums as possible. This time my time has been spent trying to experience the city, or more accurately, experience living in one neighborhood of the city.

In fact, I have been here one week and I have not gone to one museum or one monument or one tourist attraction yet.

Paris is a city of neighborhoods – some 20 of them in fact.  They are called arrondissements (administrative districts).  Each has its own geography and character.

I am living in the 18^th arrondissement which is some 3 miles away from the Seine River and the heart of the city.  the 18th encompasses Montmartre (the highest point in Paris) and the well-known church Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart).

Each neighborhood has its own center or centers where there are shops, eating establishments, laundry facilities, churches, and you name it.  the beauty of these neighborhoods is that you can walk to everything.  Most people shop for their food daily.  They will go down to their favorite neighborhood shop to get their baguette every day.  They will do the same to get their vegetables, meat, cheese, and pastries.  This is where they can meet other neighbors, talk with their favorite shop owners, and also relax and have a coffee and a croissant.

 

But importantly these neighborhood centers, if you will, are not anything like what you might be thinking of in America – nothing like a strip mall, for example.  There are two reason for this.  One, the housing that surrounds the locus of activity in each neighborhood is almost all 6-7 story tall apartment buildings that are squeezed next to each other.  there are no alley ways between them.  there are no single family homes.  Bottom line, the housing is dense and right there within walking distance of the neighborhood center of commercial activity.

The second reason this is so different from America is the deemphasis on the automobile.  First of all, the streets by and large in the neighborhoods are a single lane in one direction.  Many of the streets are cobblestone, which makes you slow down in your vehicle.  Parking is in really short supply to the extent it exists at all.  Who needs a car when you can walk to everything you need.

To get to other parts of the city Parisians use their underground Metro, their buses, their taxis, and, yes, Uber.  However, what I am amazed at is how many Parisians walk.  I have been also amazed at the number of and utilization of two-wheel modes of transportation.  Motorcycles, Vespa like scooters, bikes and scooters.  There are many more of these on the streets of Paris than there are cars.

Bicycles are hugely popular here.  People have their own bikes for sure, but many utilize bike rentals such as Lime which Uber part owns.  But the most popular is the city’s bike loaner rental program called Velib.  Scattered throughout the city are 20,000 bikes loaded at 1,400 racks ready to use – 40% are electric.  They are easy to use and are free for the first half hour.  When finished with your often one way ride, you just secure it in the nearest Velib rack and go about your business.

It is hard to overstate how important a part of Paris today is the bike rental program. Over 400,000 Parisians have subscribed to the service, and over 200,000 trips are made every day.  Velib bikes are everywhere.  Areas where cars used to be able to park are now devoted to extensive Velib bike racks.

For me I have used Metro, Uber, and taxis since I have been here, but by far what I have done most is walk (averaging over 9,000 steps per day) and ride a bike.  If I am thinking about traveling to another neighborhood or down to the Seine River, my first thought is to rent a bike rather than take Metro or hop in a cab or Uber.  The other reason for this is that the city has really done a great job of creating fully separated bike lanes on their major streets.

 

To give you some idea how much emphasis has been put on cycling, on most of the narrow one way streets bikes are allowed to go in the opposite direction from the on coming automobile traffic. Markings have been painted on the pavement to identify where the narrow bike lane is going the wrong way on a one way street.  Extraordinary!!

What they also have lots of in Paris are the rental e-scooters that are popping up in cities across America too.  But, believe it or not, Paris is the first city to my knowledge that has said enough is enough and banned these types of scooters in the future. There are currently 15,000 of them in Paris.  In a recent advisory ballot in April the idea of banning e-scooters garnered over 90% of the votes.  Unheard of!  The reason being is that they are dangerous, able to go way too fast, and too often ridden on sidewalks which they are not supposed to do.  In addition, they are often left anywhere and everywhere, many times on their side laying on the ground, creating at a minimum an eyesore and a nuisance.

Back to the idea of spending time in Paris living in and experiencing a neighborhood.  I have enjoyed it. There is something special about just walking out your door and within a few minutes you have the chance to sit down at an outdoor café, order a cup of coffee (tea for me) and a croissant and watch the hum of activity as neighbors shop for their food that they will need for that day and that day only.

Paris is a city of neighborhoods.