Lessons from Paris (a very walkable city)
Paris is one of the world’s most walkable cities. So it’s interesting to look at how this is, so we can do the same for cities in England. Outside the main cities like London, many cities across England often need cars to get around.
But in Paris, most people walk everywhere.
Most buildings are also no more than four storeys high (there are a few tall skyscrapers – the Eiffel tower is one of the city’s few tall buildings). So people don’t live in sky-high tower blocks, they walk to the boulangerie and the patisserie and the market.
They walk to friends and to work, and if they they need to go further, they take the Metro.
Arrondissements (a bit like London boroughs) are built for cars, with over 100 walking-only streets. Many car-free areas are along the River Seine, so it’s nice to walk by the water in nearby narrow historic streets.
Paris has been designated a ’15-minute city’, where everyone can walk from their home to work, the park, shops, the boulangerie and the patisserie, all in quarter of an hour!
Paris is the only city where you can step out of a railway station and see simultaneously the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens – nearly everything. What other city offers you so much, as you leave a train? Margaret Anderson
