On 11/11/2018 09:20, Peter Keller wrote:
On 11/11/18 12:05 AM, wrote:
On Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 9:44:59 AM UTC, Peter Keller wrote:

I was in Bucharest (pop only 1.9M) last summer, and I can vouch for how
impossibly congested that city is.

I have driven around there a couple of times and they don't call it the "Paris of the East" for nothing! Terrible for driving in.

I was in Paris in about 1973. It was really awful, terrible and horrible
then - cars everywhere, impatient drivers, road rage, rear-end
collisions, the works.

That's funny. I distinctly remember driving in Paris in both 1973 and
1983. The first thing I noticed was that though I expected traffic
inthat capital to be as bad as that in London - it was nowhere near as
bad. Quite free-flowing, in fact. I certainly never encountered any
undue delay or queuing.

Bucharest seemed even more congested with long periods of traffic at a
standstill.

Never been there. Almost certainly never will.

I was again in Paris about 6 years ago, and what a transformation! There
seemed to be far fewer cars (whether they are officially discouraged I
don't know) and the drivers seemed much more courteous; waving others
on, giving way often and all that. Traffic lights were rather
irrelevant; cars, pedestrians, bicyclists etc just looked out for each
other and arranged themselves and generally went happily on their way.
And I could cross the Champs-Élysées and Place de l'Étoile on foot;
certainly not possible in 1973.

Go in August. It's a joy when so much of the traffic is on holiday, and
I expect that all the blue-marked "payant" spaces are still free in August.