Al Jazeera Podcasts.

Today, Paris is waging a war on cars.

100% of the capital streets will be bike-friendly.

So can the French capital keep the momentum without losing the public?

I'm Natasha del Toro, and this is the take.

I would say that biking around Paris is one of life's pleasures.

I mean, it's fabulous.

And, you know, tree lined along the banks of the river, Sen, my personal commute, I go past the Eiffel Tower, because I actually don't live too far from it.

I go along the river, past the Louvre. I mean, it's tremendous. I'm so lucky to live in a city like this and exploring it on a bike like any city, many cities actually, is one of the best ways to do it. And it's one of the fastest because you're going to beat the traffic. You're not stuck in the metro and you've got your own freedom. So, I mean, I really love biking and I always have. So I'm Natasha Butler. I am Paris correspondent

for Al Jazeera English and I'm based in Paris, where I've lived for, well, more than 20 years.

You're making me so jealous.

Being in the U.S.

where, I mean, these are car cities, right?

Not always do they have safe lanes for bikers.

As I was researching for this story,

I was actually surprised to learn that more people in Paris now use

their bikes than cars, which, you know, I just never thought that would be the case in Paris.

Yeah. You know, I was actually in Paris in the 90s, and it was a glorious summer. But back then,

Natasha, it was also one of the most polluted traffic clogged cities.

So there's this independent group that tracks air quality in Paris called Air Parif,

and they've produced maps of air pollution in the city over the years, dating from 2007 to 2024.

So maybe around the time that you moved to Paris, that they started doing these maps.

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