A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Europe to visit my brother who had moved to Paris for work. I was incredibly excited because I was going to see my brother but also because we had plans to take the train to Torino, Italy for the weekend before returning to Paris for the rest of the week. This was a prime opportunity for me to immerse myself into some incredibly vibrant, high energy urban environments.
The trip did not disappoint in the least. Taking the Trenitalia high-speed line from Paris to Torino was a breeze and we were dropped off just outside the city center. Besides passing through some incredible Italian Alps mountain towns, the train ride was smooth and was much less hassle than trying to navigate the De Gaulle airport for a flight to a destination easily accessible by high-speed train. And getting both cities by foot was easy and probably the best way to see the cities and get a sense for the urban energy that crackles all around.
One of the elements about Torino’s streets that fascinated me was the trolley and bus system. Overhead wires for the trolleys are everywhere in the city. But what’s also everywhere are their public transit busses. One of the coolest things I saw over there was the trolley and busses running along the same lanes. Both were typically full, or at least both had what appeared to be solid ridership, and often times there was a car following behind both of them.
There were a lot of people biking around both Torino and Paris, as well. The Paris bike network and infrastructure looked intimidating at first, since it did not appear to me that there was much rhyme or reason for how the bike lanes were laid out along the streets. I did take a bike tour of the city and quickly realized how easy it is to navigate Paris on bike. In fact, many of the travel times for places I wanted to go to in Paris were quicker on bike than by the metro.
One of the key things about both Torino and Paris being eminently walkable was the fact that there was never a boring part of the city to walk in. Even in the northwest area of Paris, where my brother lives, about 2 miles from Notre Dame and the city center, there was a beehive-like intensity to the surrounding area. Bakeries, groceries, cafes, and other varied shops gave life to the sidewalk. People were everywhere, clutching morning espressos and baguettes. Even around 10:00pm on a Tuesday night, bars and restaurants were full, people were hanging out and having a good time, and the energy was high.
I feel like so much of the debate in the US about increasing public transit frequency and usage, bike-ability, and walk-ability is framed around multi-modal transit being a zero-sum game. If you add busses, then cars will be hindered. If you add a trolley car, then cars and busses will be hindered. Make a city better for pedestrians and cyclists, then cars and every other vehicular form of transportation is left out.
But what I saw in Torino and Paris is that everything can coexist. Smaller downtowns, like San Antonio, with narrower street widths would definitely be a likely candidate for combining a street car route on an existing bus route. This can be done while also still allowing cars (if cities choose) to travel along the same streets.
I realize this post was less focused and did not really include any data or hard facts. Trying to put into words and numbers the energetic aura of a city is difficult.