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Paris Makes All Public Transportation Free In Battle Against 'Worst Air Pollution For 10 Years' (independent.co.uk)
Paris has barred some cars from its streets and has made public transportation free as it suffers from the worst and most prolonged winter pollution for at least 10 years, the Airparif agency said on Wednesday. The Independent reports: Authorities have said only drivers with odd-numbered registration plates can drive in the capital region on Wednesday. Drivers of even-numbered cars were given the same opportunity on Tuesday, but could now be fined up to 35 EUR if they are caught behind the wheel. More than 1,700 motorists were fined for violations on Tuesday. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said images of smog blanketing the capital were proof of the need to reduce vehicle use in the city center. The air pollution peak is due to the combination of emissions from vehicles and from domestic wood fires as well as near windless conditions which means pollutants have not been dispersed, the Airparif agency said. "This is a record period (of pollution) for the last 10 years," Karine Leger of AirParif told AFP by telephone. For more than a week, Airparif has published readings of PM10 at more than 80 micrograms per cubic meter of air particles, triggering the pollution alert. Along with odd-numbered cars, hybrid or electric vehicles as well as those carrying three or more people will be allowed to roam the roads. Foreign and emergency vehicles will be unaffected.
Many people drive a car in order not to use public transportation... And people having a car don't really care about saving a couple of euros to travel within Paris/suburbs.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Avoiding some confusion in the comments, Paris is making all public transportation free for one or two days alone, to reduce the ammount of smog/particulate matter in the air. No, they are not making public transportation free indefinitely, this is an emergency measure... not all that different from similar stuff that China and India already did.
These are predicted to happen in several cities around the world in particular atmospheric conditions... if things keeps getting worse though, you can predict that soon, along with heavy snow days, we'll also have heavy smog days for some cities.
IL had free rides to all senior citizens 2008-2011 costs forced them to cut it to just low-income seniors.
IL had free rides to all senior citizens 2008-2011 costs forced them to cut it to just low-income seniors.
No, there are no free rides. What you mean is, "Illinois decided to have taxpayers buy rides for certain people from 2008 to 2011" ... and ... "they couldn't get the taxpayers to pay even more, so they cut down the number of rides the taxpayers were buying to a more select group of those certain people."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No, you mean that Illinois decided to serve the elderly population by accommodating their situation and get them off the roads since many of them were forced to continue driving, thereby putting everybody at risk, but a bunch of twats decided that was just unacceptable, but they couldn't quite find a way to kill the entire, program, let alone turn them into Soylent Green.
Well being completely untrue tends to have that effect on an opinion.
This has nothing to do with refugees (Who are not 'burning shit' in paris). Calais was a good 300+ km away, nearly a year ago, and ironically the fires where lit by englishmen.
But hey, keep mashing the crazy keys Anonymous Coward.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
No, they mean ACTUAL WOOD FIRES, as you'd know if you weren't a xenophobic shit.
https://www.frenchentree.com/blog/paris-bans-open-fires-to-reduce-pollution/
http://www.france24.com/en/20141209-paris-log-fire-ban-goes-flames
Maybe turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant ionic collector?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Glad to see AmeriKKKa hasn't (yet) cornered the market on lying right-wingnut fucktards.
There are still many very old houses with indoor fireplaces in the towns surrounding the Paris city proper. In winter the smell of burnt log is unmistakable.
Paris is in a river basin where there used to be a swamp. When the airflow stops, pollutants get stuck there.
I found this oddly hilarious. Well done!
Trolling is a art,
Just need to make sure the license plates are 'right'.. I wonder if theres anything in place to tie odd/even numbers to a registered family name?
No, you mean "Rod Blagojevich decided to have taxpayers buy rides for certain people as a re-election tool, but then he went to jail, so they rolled it back as far as they could get away with."
Or libtards with their heads buried so far up their own asses that they can't see what's actually going on around them.
To be clear about exactly what happened.
In 2007~2008 the CTA was having financial difficulties. The Illinois legislature made a deal to bailout the CTA from some financial difficulties.
At the last minute Governor Blago, who is now in jail for trying to sell a Senate set, thew in an additional condition: free rides on all Il public transportation for handicapped and seniors.
It really pissed the legislature off because they had to redo the whole budget, but it got passed. He looked like a hero to seniors and the handicapped.
Eventually he got inmpeached and the new Gov discovered that free rides were not sustainable. So they means tested it.
Keep in mind though, that a largbe part of the cost is due to pensions for Chicago machine "cronies".
There goes the /. neighborhood. Another AC full of shit, unfortunately yours can't even be burned, albeit it is indicative of a flaming ahole.
What does that even mean? Forced to continue driving? Driving is one of the most expensive hobbies in the world, and if you can afford to drive you can afford the far cheaper option of public transportation and taxi's.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Wow, holy fuck that's a lot of mental gymnastics you have going on there. The refugees from Calais were in Calais much more recently than a year ago (try October) and ended up mostly moving elsewhere - including Paris. No Englishmen lit fires in Calais - the French government would have thrown a fucking fit the likes of which you haven't seen since the early twentieth century if that were the case. The English did turn down a bunch of migrants, and France obliged by not sending them to England without authorization.
Many of the migrants did end up in Paris, though. Here's a Reuters article for you: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-paris-idUSKBN12Z0JR
I'm in Phoenix, Az and we've already got smog days. I can't think of a good reason not to have free public transportation besides the classic line "But who's gonna pay for it?"...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What does that even mean? Forced to continue driving? Driving is one of the most expensive hobbies in the world, and if you can afford to drive you can afford the far cheaper option of public transportation and taxi's.
... The average American living in the suburbs is ~ 20-30 miles from the nearest city / shopping area. If you feel like you can make a 30 mile hike and back in less than a day, at the age of 85, you're welcome to it. But for many elderly people, who live alone, driving is not a luxury - it's a necessity, because there's often no other way for them to get basic needs. (medical care, food, etc.)
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Pretty sure Reuters is one of those fake-news sites the liberals have been hyperventilating about recently, after all it disputes "fact" that he knows.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What does that even mean? Forced to continue driving? Driving is one of the most expensive hobbies in the world, and if you can afford to drive you can afford the far cheaper option of public transportation and taxi's.
Hobby? Hobby? What do you think, we're talking about a bunch of poncy English Lords tooting around Silverstone in leather caps? We're not talking hobby, we're talking necessity. This is America, after all. If you don't drive 100 miles uphill(And hills in Illinois are especially treacherous) just to get your mail, you're not really American.
It's also why we can't have high-speed internet. Or a decent beer. Or a White Christmas.
And God forbid the cheeses. What the fuck is American cheese? Seriously.
... The average American living in the suburbs is ~ 20-30 miles from the nearest city / shopping area.
Where the hell did you get that statistic from? If you're 20-30 miles from a mall you're no longer in the suburbs, you're considered to be rural.
and they sent an man who did nothing to prison. At least we still have all kids
Eventually he got inmpeached and the new Gov discovered that free rides were not sustainable. So they means tested it.
Dunno how they discovered it wasn't, but FWIW it might be an unfortunate (mis-)find.
Public transportation where I live is free for seniors. Trains, metros, busses, boats, etc., in all cities and between all cities. Everything except airplanes. It surprised me somewhat when I came here for the first time, and it certainly surprised my parents when they first came (since as EU seniors they didn't need to pay either), but apparently this has been going on since the communist era.
There arguably is a cost. Perhaps one can shrug it off as in "meh, the bus is scheduled anyway. The only point in time where it might be problematic is during rush hours when you need to field a few more busses." Or perhaps not.
Either way, the positive side effects are observable when you care to look: seniors tend to visit their children and grand children across the country instead of it being the other way around like where I'm from - and more often, at that. You see seniors everywhere, and the contrast in their behavior is palpable when I compare this with the other two dozen or so countries I've lived in. When they do go out they can afford to go to cafes and restaurants, give some money to their kids and grand kids, etc. Plus nanny savings that allow single moms to work more than part-time where applicable.
I've no idea if the net economic balance is positive, but when you factor in the quality of life side effects across generations it certainly seems worth doing.
Are VW Diesel's still allowed on the road?
wtf slashdot? insightful?
There's only one way to freshen it...
...because the location of malls is the final arbiter of what is rural and what isn't.
"His name was James Damore."
Let's be clear
Yes, let's. You are an ignorant moron. There, that was easy. Next!
There arguably is a cost. Perhaps one can shrug it off as in "meh, the bus is scheduled anyway. The only point in time where it might be problematic is during rush hours when you need to field a few more busses." Or perhaps not.
The set of people that would be paying for the service but now dont have to is the cost. This cost is pushed on to the tax payers, and the bulk of state and local tax dollars are surely paid by the middle class and the poor since Illinois has a single-rate income tax (a flat tax.)
This progressive policy has a regressive consequence. Free rides should be given to the poorest people, not the oldest people.
"His name was James Damore."
Allow service vehicles, public transportation, cabs and bicycles, and everyone will be happy.
This will be unpopular with North Americans (US and Canadians alike) who live their lives in cars, but in Europe we can conceive of an existence where you don't need to hop into a car every time you have to go from point A to point B.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
..Beijing was at 286 last week for the pm10 reading.
Older drives are more expensive on the roads, incentives to reduce their driving saves money and benefits the public.
Of course, they could also just bus all the elderly to Arizona and Florida, as nearby Governor Pence of Indiana suggested. This would have a multitude of benefits, especially for production of NEW! Soylent Avocado.
You're a faggot. Hope that helps.
Agreed that the poorest benefit the most. However, encouraging the elderly to stay fit and active using the incentive of low cost-travel could extend lives and reduce medical expenses.
that's a suburb, if it's just 20-30 miles.
you know what's rural? driving 100km both ways just to buy booze.
that's Lapland for you.
anyways, for a lot of elderly people the choice is to either keep driving or move into an old peoples cesspit. free public transportation doesn't really come to the play even, if the bus is 10 km away.
what's a mall anyways? and look, I lived in a 23 000 people about city in Finland and having a car was pretty much non-optional even if you lived 2km from the "mall"(highschool, shops, restaurants area). the local bus went maybe two times a day and just walking to it would have been half the distance anyways - and yeah I did walk many, many times to school in -20-30C and biked in -10C.
When I lived in Helsinki however the public transportation was pretty good, albeit expensive all things considered. like 1.5 liters of gasoline for a 3 minute metro ride kind of expensive. if it wasn't snowy half the year I bet nearly everyone would have some kind of a moped or scooter, like people in asia do.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I live in a major US city and I take a bus to my job (typical 9am-5pm hours) and I think at least 75% of the time there's no more than 4 people on the bus including the bus driver. What a waste! I've had the entire bus to myself many times.
So he was right and you want to frame him as an "other" by labeling him and dismissing what you know to be actually happening. You even posted two links about burning wood being a problem and a ban.
What's the angle that makes you full of hate?
Authorities have said only drivers with odd-numbered registration plates can drive in the capital region on Wednesday. ....
Great System. Rich self entitled bastards with multiple cars get to drive whenever they want, working stiffs trying to get to their jobs have another burden. Also, if people have multiple vehicles and one is a small relatively clean and efficient vehicle and the other is a large dirty low mileage vehicle, this law tells them to drive the dirty inefficient vehicle some of the time.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
>(Who are not 'burning shit' in paris).
This is what brainwashing looks like. Incredible.
This is totally fake bullshit. For starters there are not that many refugees in Paris. And they have houses in Paris. The largest sum in the EU is residing in Germany. And they have houses too. Most domestic fires are fireplaces which middle class families have for fun.
You just used the words 'cheaper' and 'taxi' in the same sentence. Are you sure you are alright?
Doesn't France have stringent polution controls on their cars? (Euro IV, Euro V) WHY, then, is there smog? Is this the consequence of having lots of diesels, but weak controls on nitrous oxides, unlike the USA?
Bleh, our city just has a cop randomly check for tickets. I guess they can just give out big fines for not having a ticket.
And the pollution isn't that bad at all. It's on par with Boston in the winter. It's nice that I don't have to pay to ride the subway, but this reporting and reaction is hyperbole.
"if you can afford to drive you can afford the far cheaper option of public transportation and taxi's."
Have you done the numbers? Really? Because I've done and no: taxis are not cheaper than cars, not by a far margin like somewhere from 300% to 1000% more expensive. Other means, yes, can be cheaper... usually if you don't value your time. And while car pollution can shorten your life, so also do sleep deprivation from having to wake up one to one hour and a half earlier to go to workplace on public transport.
Ja, mein Fuhrer!
French are choking to death by our Volkswagens!
The obvious solution is of course to address the regressive part of the problem and abolish the flat tax.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
At least until pollution levels go back. Make an exception for public transport, taxis, disabled people and true emergencies. These half-assed attempts will have no effect whatsoever. And a 35 € fine is a joke. How can car ownership Trump public health? Fucking idiots.
Fake news. They didn't make it free, they simply stopped charging riders fares and instead are using everyone's taxes whether you ride or not.
While you are correct that you couldn't economically use taxis to replace all you driving, in some circumstances the mixture of walking, cycling, public transport and taxis/Uber can be cheaper than owning and operating a car. It depends on how much you travel and where you need to go. I also did the sums and decided to not replace my car when it gave up the ghost. I found that it was cheaper for me to use the other transport options.
Whenever I have moved to a new home, I have always chosen a location that is close to a major public transport hub and either walking or cycling distance to university and work. For those rare occasions when I have to go somewhere that is not easily serviced by trains or buses, I get a taxi. Doing this is still cheaper for me than buying, maintaining, fueling, insuring and parking a car. I am also able to spend my commuting time working, surfing the web, or even playing video games. It's nice if you can get it to work for you.
"Authorities have said only drivers with odd-numbered registration plates can drive in the capital region on Wednesday. Drivers of even-numbered cars were given the same opportunity on Tuesday, but could now be fined up to 35 EUR if they are caught behind the wheel. More than 1,700 motorists were fined for violations on Tuesday...
Well, this is certainly one creative way to throw a blanket of fog over the fact that you now have a new revenue stream.
Congratulations on opening up another channel of greed and corruption.
Seriously, it is much cheaper to quit taxing EVs than subsidizing public transportation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They keep trying to force people into cans like sardines. This is the 21st century! Let's talk about NO commuting. Our office works one day per week from home. That's a 20% reduction in dry cleaning, fuel, etc. I also typically get more done because I don't have people wandering by my desk with time on their hands.
Except that they're not really being bought, are they? The buses have to go places whether or not anyone is riding. People whose senses are gradually failing should not be driving. Even if you're so delusional as to equate taxation with theft, the theft was the public transportation, not the discounted fare. But hey, never settle for critical thinking when there's fear and hatred to be relied on.
My home city has a map of how much you save by going by bus instead of by car, and they compared it to buying the cheapest, one-year ticket.
If you were from any of the neighboring villages, going by bus was the more expensive option even by their calculation.
Where I live now, if you already own a car, going by bus is about 3x more expensive and 7x slower. Enough that owning a car just to drive to work would probably break even.
Well, except that going by bike is still 3x faster than bus and even cheaper, can earn back the price of a cheap bike in half a year.
I like public transport in principle, but in so many cases it's completely broken even in Europe that my best hopes for it are when they can make self-driving busses on the cheap and cut the price by at least 5x, otherwise it'll continue to be limited to inner cities and exceptional cases.
Well, they didn't put a lot of effort to find those not applying the restriction. You can stop at any red light and find dozens of cars with the wrong category of number in a few minutes. Apparently, they had 120 checkup points ... not really efficient.
Unless those check up points were actually at the outskirt and only prevented people from going in, not fining.
Still, if they wanted to make money witht that, it'll be quite easy to get more than that.
a) the poorest people and the oldest people are often the same people. there is significant overlap
b) the bus/train is going to run anyway. the difference between an empty seat and an unpaying seat is zero. there is no net increase in cost to taxpayers.
c) drivers past a certain age are a liability on the roads. keeping them off the roads is a boon to taxpayers.
d) therefore, given A B and C, seniors who are able to still be out and about and not just shut in their homes or a nursing facility are a boon to the local economy, whether they are working or consuming. it also keeps them more active and engaged and improves their quality of life.
Conclusion: there are no regressive consequences here.
Free rides should be given to the poorest people, as well as the oldest people
FTFY
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The onetime costs are low for driving, but that is actually a downside, as most of the costs come in single lump sums. You either buy a $200 junker every other month, and get caught in the middle of nowhere a few times a year and need to use a taxi or you pay $15 grand every 10 years. Then lets say you are OK with driving illegally, and don't get insurance. Sure, if you drive an average of 4 hours or more every day, and break the law, and plan on going to jail and being bankrupt for the rest of your life if you get in an accident, maybe owning a car is cheaper. But if you just need to get into town a few times a year, taxis are cheaper. You can take quite a few rides in taxis for $1000, and you will never end up spending less than that on average a year owning a car.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Yeah, I did this in Minnesota, too, but it still isn't any fun. I don't begrudge people their transportation choices when it gets below 0C for that reason.
Not everyone gets to make that choice. The best you can probably do with an ideal infrastructure is a spanning-H tree (a la the core clock distribution systems on microprocessors) and that still only scales as O(n) or O(n log n) at best, but the areal density scales as O(n^2). Just from a geometry standpoint *some* people are going to have to drive if everyone wants to live in or near a metropolis.
the new Gov discovered that free rides were not sustainable.
Dunno how they discovered it wasn't, but FWIW it might be an unfortunate (mis-)find
I know! It's too bad the greedy bus driver don't drive seniors and poor people for no paycheck. I guess bus drivers really don't care about the poor and the seniors. To be clear, these bus drivers should also be paying for the gas and maintenance.
Thank you for the TANSTAAFL. You'd added a lot to the conversation.
This is a benefit which would help Native born more than Immigrants as Immigrant grandparents are probably overseas.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I remember riding one of the buses. True story.
Here in San Francisco Public Transport Drivers are some of the most overpaid people. They get better pay than Software Engineers with 4 years of college and have fantastic pension schemes. I was talking to one of the drivers of our corporate Shuttle. he drove for VTA for 20 years and now has a pension for life. He can live on the pension but he is bored so he drives for our company's corporate shuttle. What he made as a driver was way more than what Software engineers make in the first 5 years of their career
**Life is too short to be serious**
I was recently in the town of Saas-Fee in the canton of Valais in Sitzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
All fossil fuel vehicles are banned from this town. There is a special underground garage to park cars outside.
People, the life in 19th century was better than now. Clean air, quiet splendid streets without grey rubber dust from the cars' tires, nice houses, all districts of the town are equally prestigious, as all of them are clean and calm, without steel rivers of cars and clouds of toxic smoke.
Don't even look at the pay extorted by the port of Oakland longshoremen. They get paid more than senior developer/project leads.
You have to inherit the job from a family member though.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's the fourth day the alternate traffic circulation rule is applied (and the first in Lyon [where the public tranportation company is on strike ...] and Villeurbanne). Since I've right now a nice view on La Defense from my desk, I can say that the fog is lighter than previous days, but still here.
: :)) :) There's actually 353 buses lines in Paris and the nearest suburbs. ... let's say, almost reliable. At rush hour, we have 1 train every 15 minutes, and after that, one each 1/2 hour or each hour (depend of the station and the RER line).
... that's it, I think I haven't forgot anything ... all the other things is true (the smell, especiallly during summer, the crowd, the way the disease could be catch in the metro ...) ... Ah, one more thing : the chimney using is tolerated for supplementary heating or for your own pleasure (see https://www.service-public.fr/... [french page]), and the studies who says that this wood bunring polution represent 23% of the pollution are very controversed.
I're red some wrong statments, and here's some clarifications
- the monthly transportation fee is 73€ for everyone, with no travel limit adn all transportation medium in "Ile de France" (quite a large area, take a look in Google
- the bus network (RATP inside Paris, other companies, like Transdev, outside) is pretty dense : look on Google map on Paris, and zoom enough to see the little blue buses, you'll see
- there's a metro each 2 or 3 minutes, if all works well (but because of the terrorist threat, every abandonned luggage tend to cause delays)
- the RER, who permit me to go to work (I live near Fontainebleau and work near La Defense, and out of the holyday season, I can't even imagine to go to work by car [count about 2-3 hours x2]), is
Mmmm
If this is true (which I doubt. 20-30 MILES on average from the NEAREST place for shopping??? Extremely implausible.) then America needs to do some serious re-modelling of it's cities to make them more inhabitant-friendly. Living in a small (10,000 people) city in a rural area, I have two supermarkets and a full-service pharmacy within under a mile, a late night (07:00-22:00 x7 x365) store in the same range. Another 7 miles (I cycle it routinely) I add 3 more general supermarkets, a town with three computer-bits stores and several furniture and clothing shops. 30 miles out, there's a cinema but I've never felt the need to travel there. (Maybe even two cinemas ; it's not on my "need to know" list.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"