Reflections on Paris, France

I have been traveling in Paris, France for the past eight days so far, and leave for Berlin, Germany on my birthday, March 28. I am staying in an urban neighborhood about a four kilometers’ walk south of the Eiffel Tower.

The first realization I had once I landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport was that the Paris metro area has excellent public transit. Unlike Minneapolis, it both far quicker and cheaper to get to my hotel by rail than using an Uber or taxi. A month-long, unlimited metro ‘tourist’ pass is 100 € or around $108 US after conversion. A single UberX ride to the airport from my hotel would be 54 € and 15 minutes slower.

So far in my travels, I have taken all the forms of public transit: metro subway, elevated metro, trams (like light rail), heavy rail commuter trains, and buses. All with one, unlimited tourist pass.

My favorite — of course — is the metro subway. It’s a superhuman power to be able to go underground (or on elevated track) and travel quickly through a dense metropolis. It is shameful that previous Hennepin County leadership decided to route the Southwest Green Line extension through Kenwood forests instead of have a subway through Lyndale or Nicollet and unlock billions of dollars in transit-oriented development.

High quality public transit and high density of residential population go hand-in-hand. Paris is a prime example of this. In my neighborhood of Issy-les-Moulineaux, most of the buildings are both six or more stories and have mixed use with residential above commercial spaces like restaurants, cafés, pharmacies, and even bookshops. There is a comic book store and another bookstore or two just a few blocks from me.

I visited the Eiffel Tower yesterday. It was a wonderful experience. The online booking website was not working, so I stood in the ticket office line, but the spectacular view at the summit was worth the wait. Here is a gallery of my photos from Eiffel!

Do you see any surface parking lots? Absolutely not! Paris does have on-street parking, but very few off-street surface parking lots like we unfortunately have even in Downtown Minneapolis. Again, residential density and ridership on public transit go hand-in-hand.

Paris is not perfect, however. Nearly all of the metro system and most buildings are not what in the US we would deem ADA compliant for physical access. Sidewalks are narrow to the point that a wheelchair or mobility scooter could not navigate in many areas. It is interesting how the very narrow streets have such an abundance of on-street parking. There will be streets with a single one-way lane of traffic and two sides of on-street parking with little room for pedestrians. While Paris has made many strides in bikeways, I do feel safer biking in Minneapolis because there are more off-street and protected bikeway options like the Midtown Greenway and other safe off-street trails.

If I wasn’t already, traveling in Paris has definitely red-pilled me once again that Minneapolis can do so much better on making our neighborhoods complete neighborhoods with groceries, pharmacies, restaurants, cafés and more within a sidewalk trip of home. There is a small grocery store just on my block at the hotel. On my very block! And two restaurants on my block. On my very block!

I am working half-time with my full-time job with the University to stay ahead of tasks, and so I haven’t had the full days to go exploring like I would really like to. But I do enjoy my time here and I can’t wait to do more traveling in Berlin next week.

Now, more pictures of food with 100% reusable, compostable, or recyclable containers!