I lived in Paris awhile in the mid-80’s, having moved there from
California. The contrast in the traffic ethos could not have been more
vivid. California, the land of wide-open spaces where the car is king
and the you are rarely denied the God-given right to get from A to B as
quickly as possible. And Paris with its patchwork of medieval streets
overlaid by Baron Haussman’s 1860 "modernization," broad avenues which nonetheless maintained a human scale.I remember the first time I was in a taxi and it turned down one of
those typically narrow (and heart-breakingly charming) streets only to
come up against a large delivery truck unloading. No muss, no fuss
(and, apparently, no hurry either, as the workers sauntered back and
forth smoking and chatting constantly.) The taxi driver stopped, turned
off his engine and announced something to me along the lines of (I was
not too fluent in French,) "Dommage. On peux reste un moment" (Sorry,
there’ll be a wait.)
