To Bercy and back

The light turns green, and the cars stand still. But the bicycles? We're liquid. It's so efficient. It's so coordinated. It's like dancing.

My new companion is probably older than me: a Peugeot city bicycle, of unknown vintage, which I bought through a series of text messages with a local dealer of such contraptions.

Old bikes are ubiquitous on the streets of Paris. I wanted in. And it is the best 175 euros I have ever spent.

It is with great joy that I retrieve my two-wheeler from the courtyard, hop on, and take off for who-knows-where after a long day of work. My neighborhood's name translates roughly to "Martyr's Hill," and Montmartre is a hill indeed, the city's second-highest, and so every direction from home is downward. It is an exhilarating way to shake off the day, plunging through one of the very old roads that wind their way down, down, down into the city's heart. I hardly need to pedal as gravity carries me through the city and many centuries' worth of architectural history.

In what feels like moments I am on a stone bridge and the great Seine is beneath me, and at the gentle apex of the bridge's arch I pause, almost always, to look. It is a sight that never, ever disappoints. Cities are among humanity's greatest achievements, and Paris stands alone in her urban excellence. Two millennia of urban history spread out before me in every direction, and it all glows and sparkles alluringly in the late afternoon, early-autumn sun.

I follow the bike path, waiting for a green light and the city's chaotic traffic to clear before turning left. I'm on the quay now, rumbling traffic to my right and the city's pedestrian riverfront to my left. I carry on like this for several tree-shaded miles.

The path feels luxurious to me: it is completely separated from vehicle traffic. It is clearly marked, and it's easy to follow the numbered signs designating this as one of the major bicycle routes that will connect central Paris to its suburbs. The path is maintained well in most places and is very wide, wide enough for bicyclists to pass each other. This last quality is crucial; the dogged investments made by Paris's city hall in bicycling infrastructure have paid off handsomely, with people biking everywhere and in all seasons in a city that was once dominated by cars. It gets crowded out there, and the city is already widening some paths to accommodate more people bicycling and the wider range of bicycle speeds in the e-bike era.It's getting late, my stomach rumbles, and I'm nearing the city's eastern edge. I cross back over the river and head westward, back toward the center, sleek high-rises in the city's riverfront districts giving way once again to architecture old, then ancient.

The path on the river's northern side—the right bank—follows what was, until recently, a riverside freeway. The city boldly, and in the face of much whining from entitled drivers, converted it into a gorgeous waterfront promenade of parks and walking and bicycling paths. Restaurants soon followed, as did many public events, and the right bank riverfront is now a very popular gathering spot, never more so than in the golden sunset hours. I find myself slowing considerably through thick crowds of people walking and hanging out, so I find my way back up (using what was once a freeway exit) and, at Châtelet, return to the city's grid.

Here's where things get interesting. It's rush hour, and in Paris, that means a lot of cars and a lot of bikes. A few moments before the light turns green the intersection is already swarmed with bicyclists, all aiming at full speed for a relatively narrow bike lane that heads north into the boulevard Sébastopol along the city's central north-south axis. I wonder if we're all going to crash into each other as dozens of us make way for such a narrow lane at such high speed. But somehow, with graceful fluidity, we all fall into line.

This peloton reaches rue du Rivoli, the city's central east-west axis. From a transportation standpoint, we're at the city's very heart, and private vehicles were removed from this deeply symbolic street when pandemic-era closures were made permanent. Traffic is at a standstill as Boulevard de Sébastopol passes this major bicycle thoroughfare, and each leg of the intersection is guarded by at least a dozen people on bikes.

The light turns green, and the cars stand still. But the bicycles? We're liquid. We organize ourselves quickly and become almost startingly coordinated. I find myself moving in tandem with dozens of cyclists around me. We're progressing toward the city's big northern train stations at a good clip—not fast enough to break a sweat, but with a comfortable efficiency.

The lights continue to turn green. We continue to flow, almost effortlessly, through intersection after intersection of clogged vehicle traffic. It could feel chaotic, but there's safety in numbers; it's the bicyclists, not the vehicles, which now determine the flow. It's a true critical mass. People enter the crosswalks in their turn, and we quickly pause, let them pass, and we're off again.

It's so efficient. It's so coordinated. It's like dancing.

I pass through the barely contained chaos where Boulevard de Sébastopol crosses Boulevard de Magenta, then head north into the not-at-all-contained chaos of Boulevard Barbès. The street becomes a market, and the tiny sidewalk-running bike path is filled with people. It feels impossible to navigate this stretch, which funnels every mode of transportation into a single route to and from the city's suburbs, and I wonder how long it will be before the city remakes this boulevard to privilege buses and provide some real space for bicycles.

It's the most stressful bit of my ride, and uphill to boot, but no matter: I'm almost home, and soon find myself in the calm and hilly streets on the backside of Montmartre. I hang a left into a tree-shaded square, cross some very uneven cobblestones, and hop off. I'm home.

It's clear already that this bicycle is going to become like the one I love which now sits in a storage unit back in New York: more than a way of getting around, it becomes an extension of my body and a portal to a bigger world. I love the freedom bicycles provide me. I thrill to be one in a stream of bodies moving together, moving sustainably, through the city. I'm encouraged by the simple courtesies we—most of us—show each other and those around us.

Bicycle and pedestrian culture is human culture, and it's markedly different from car culture. The courtesies we show are not always reflected to us by the behavior vehicles that surround us on these ancient streets. The Paris case seems to prove that people can safely walk and bicycle in city that is also filled with cars. But I wonder whether all those private vehicles belong here in the first place. They're loud, polluting, and make inefficient use of street space we desperately need for better transit, more and safer bicycle facilities, and wider and more comfortable sidewalks.

Call me radical, but my root belief is that private vehicles and public spaces just aren’t compatible.

Let's hope Paris has the guts to continue transforming itself into a place where the streets belong to human bodies and where two wheels are a freely available source of freedom and joy.