Latest European Arms Race: Who’s the Greenest of Them All? (Nantes!)
Nantes, France, is the European Green Capital of 2013, and my kind of city: “the transport hierarchy has been flipped around. Seventy-five percent of the street is devoted to spacious rights-of-way for bus rapid transit … Drivers yield to pedestrians, and those on foot boldly step into crosswalks. Parking spaces have been minimized … Residents and visitors hop on nearly 1,000 bike-share bicycles at over a hundred stations, navigating via hundreds of kilometers of bike paths.” No wonder they call it the Portland of France.
A good piece from my pal Anthony Flint:
For Second-Tier European Cities, It’s a Race to Go Greener, Faster
NANTES, France —This post-industrial city near the Brittany coast has tried all manner of things to distinguish itself as the other important city in France.
Theme-park style rides combined with public art – loads of it, literally, including a giant mechanical elephant that sashays out to a plaza with up to 30 people on its back, and playfully sprays water from its trunk at those on the ground. A memorial celebrating abolition, as a mea culpa for being a major seaport for the slave trade. A conference center, of course, and equally ubiquitous literature touting the city as the center of Europe, with plane routes equidistant from Dublin, Lisbon, and Milan.
Nantes’s giant mechanical elephant (right) and seaport. Photos by Anthony Flint.
Yet all of that was never quite enough. So the city embarked on an aggressive campaign to be the greenest city it could possibly be, as a kind of ultimate distinction.
The transformation has not been subtle.
“They do not like cars now in Nantes,” says the kind gentleman who gave me a ride on a recent afternoon from the Sozo Hotel, a re-purposed cathedral. He had just gotten a parking ticket, for the crime of keeping his mini on the street five minutes past the allotted time.
My destination that afternoon was the Eco City World Summit. Jet-lagged and running late — I confess! — I got there in a car. But Nantes wants me to walk, ride a bike, or ride gleaming new bright white trams that criss-cross the city one after the other, with two- or three-minute headways.
One of Nantes’s many trams. Photo by Anthony Flint.
Far and away, the key feature of being green for Nantes has been to discourage car use. The message is clear on the wide streets coming into town: the transport hierarchy has been flipped around. Seventy-five percent of the street is devoted to spacious rights-of-way for bus rapid transit. There are prim new stations every several blocks. Cars are relegated to narrow lanes on either side.
Drivers yield to pedestrians, and those on foot boldly step into crosswalks. Parking spaces have been minimized, and space for cars has been redirected as public space, similar to Times Square. Residents and visitors hop on nearly 1,000 bike-share bicycles at over a hundred stations, navigating via hundreds of kilometers of bike paths.
Read the full article:
https://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/10/second-tier-european-cities-its-race-go-greener-faster/7101/
Theme-park style rides combined with public art – loads of it, literally, including a giant mechanical elephant that sashays out to a plaza with up to 30 people on its back, and playfully sprays water from its trunk at those on the ground. A memorial celebrating abolition, as a mea culpa for being a major seaport for the slave trade. A conference center, of course, and equally ubiquitous literature touting the city as the center of Europe, with plane routes equidistant from Dublin, Lisbon, and Milan.
Nantes’s giant mechanical elephant (right) and seaport. Photos by Anthony Flint.
Yet all of that was never quite enough. So the city embarked on an aggressive campaign to be the greenest city it could possibly be, as a kind of ultimate distinction.
The transformation has not been subtle.
“They do not like cars now in Nantes,” says the kind gentleman who gave me a ride on a recent afternoon from the Sozo Hotel, a re-purposed cathedral. He had just gotten a parking ticket, for the crime of keeping his mini on the street five minutes past the allotted time.
My destination that afternoon was the Eco City World Summit. Jet-lagged and running late — I confess! — I got there in a car. But Nantes wants me to walk, ride a bike, or ride gleaming new bright white trams that criss-cross the city one after the other, with two- or three-minute headways.
One of Nantes’s many trams. Photo by Anthony Flint.
Far and away, the key feature of being green for Nantes has been to discourage car use. The message is clear on the wide streets coming into town: the transport hierarchy has been flipped around. Seventy-five percent of the street is devoted to spacious rights-of-way for bus rapid transit. There are prim new stations every several blocks. Cars are relegated to narrow lanes on either side.
Drivers yield to pedestrians, and those on foot boldly step into crosswalks. Parking spaces have been minimized, and space for cars has been redirected as public space, similar to Times Square. Residents and visitors hop on nearly 1,000 bike-share bicycles at over a hundred stations, navigating via hundreds of kilometers of bike paths.
Read the full article:
https://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/10/second-tier-european-cities-its-race-go-greener-faster/7101/