If you weren't sealed in your own worldview, you might actually check things out and find that there are exciting places to go without a car. Just because the towns I mentioned aren't interesting to you doesn't mean that there aren't places out there that you'd find interesting. And yes, there are plenty of rural places and campsites that are accessible by bus or train.

I wouldn't do this if it were just about saving the planet. Honestly, I find road trips both boring and stressful at the same time. I've taken plenty of them; one particular drive to Mesa Verde National Park was really unpleasant because I had to spend about half the time behind the wheel. But you can keep telling yourself you're having fun too, as you're frustrated by highway traffic for hours, and then too fatigued to do anything once you arrive.

Anyway, what does this have to do with Paris, or even with driving subsidies in the US? In France, in fact, you can get to some really rural places by bus and train, because there are enough people without cars to make it worth the money to run the buses and trains.

BORING!

I've posted these books on Streetsblog before:

http://www.amazon.com/Heavenly-Weekends-Daytrips-Overnight-Getaways/dp/0789308584
http://www.amazon.com/Frommers-Escapes-Without-Wonderful-Weekends/dp/0764598295/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/002-2938311-4402466
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Walker-Hikes-York-Metropolitan/dp/0385141408

So Ed, are you in favor of liveable streets, or do you just come here to get into arguments?

Then you walk from the train station/bus depot/airport to your hotel/motel/campsite.

OK.

Please, enlighten me to as to how you get away from the city?

Some of the sidewalks are literally two feet wide, so two tires of a van can make them completely impassible. But others, like the Boulevard du Montparnasse, have humungous sidewalks (really, 20-30 feet wide) that have actually been turned into parking lots, with some kind of muni-meter, by previous administrations. Imagine fifty Citroens on one of the Ocean Parkway malls, and you begin to get the idea. These are lovely tree-lined Parisian streets, but nobody hangs out there, because who wants to look at a parking lot?

Of course in a lot of ways it's still better than NYC, and it had improved in the previous five years. The Quartier vert car-free zones were nice. I'm not knocking the improvements at all, only saying that they still have a ways to go. Hopefully it's gotten better since then and will continue to improve.

America's "love affair with the automobile" only started about sixty years ago, fueled by the Interstate Highway System. Take away the subsidies, and that love affair will sour pretty quick.

Politicians are still in the pockets of big business. They are bought and sold. Look at Bridsky and his parking garage contributors. It doesn't matter what level you are on, you are being paid by someone. Campaign finance reform has been a joke. If this country wasn't ruled by car and oil companies, Brooklyn would still have trolleys! Penn Station (the nice one) would still exist! And there would be an electric car and we wouldn't be fighting this war.

Don't ever think that America can be as good as Europe, the people do not think like europeans. Americans think about themselves, Europeans think about their country. You can wave the stars and stripes as much as you want but you still worship the honky dollar.

It's not the 1950s anymore. A growing number of Americans, including many involved in "big business," are coming to recognize that auto-dominated cities and auto-dependent lifestyles are not good for mobility, public health, long-term sustainability, even personal happiness and "big business."

Here in NYC, for example, big business, represented by the Parternship for NYC, has embraced the idea that automobile traffic is costing the city $13 billion per year.

"I car about bicycles and buses."

http://www.v2asp.paris.fr/v2/Deplacements/mobilien/Galerie_photos.asp

And everyone likes streaming video, right?

http://www.v2asp.paris.fr/v2/Deplacements/mobilien/default.asp

Ddartley, I'm not sure what you mean by motorists crossing from one side of the street to another. These are mostly on large boulevards where you can go for more than a "long NYC block" without a left turn, and the lanes don't change that.

The boulevards that these bus/bike/taxi lanes are installed on are much wider than Broadway in Midtown. Some of them might be almost as wide as all of Times Square. Think Broadway on the Upper West Side or Park Avenue, but to put the Mobilien lanes in you'd have to tear up the medians.

I personally think they'd be perfect for some of the wider boulevards in the outer boroughs: the Grand Concourse, Queens Boulevard or Fourth Avenue. It'd be a hard sell, though: they wouldn't even do it on Pelham Parkway for the "BRT" pilot.

-Do bikes and buses get a green light before the cars around them do? If so, that would make intersections and turning a lot safer. (That's a feature of "my" bike+fire+bus lane.)

-Are motorists somehow able to cross from one side of such streets to another, while they're on those avenues? "My" design DOES allow motorists to do so, because it doesn't physically separate, like the pictured Paris model.

Three reasons my design doesn't contain physical separation:

1. I figured the concession to motorists described above would make them more realistic politically. (Sure, if I were King, I would push cars off to the side, but I submit the designs to NYC officials, not the gods)

2. I figured that without phys. separation, they'd be easier, cheaper, and faster to install

3. There are some places where physical separation is just not feasible--e.g., areas where it could hinder emergency response vehicles.

BUT, heck, if NYCDOT really might actually consider a lane like the Paris one above, believe me, I'd be very happy. It would certainly be nice for Broadway in Manhattan, esp. through Times Square.