The Cars That Ate Paris

It’s rush hour in Paris, and here on the banks of the Seine during an early March evening, it’s easy to see why drivers are grumpy.

Last September, the lower quays of central Paris’s two-tiered Seine embankment closed to all motorized vehicles, limiting drivers of the double-decked waterfront highway to the upper quay. Now, at 6 p.m., the upper quay is packed with cars creeping home to the suburbs—still moving, but in a viscous molasses-like flow rather than a steady stream. Meanwhile the lower quays, now reserved for bicycles and pedestrians, are all but empty, with just a cyclist here, a skater there. The landscaping that will eventually turn them into a lush succession of lawns, copses, and flowerbeds is only beginning to emerge, so the quayside still looks like a road—a road you can’t drive on.