Stop Selling Sustainability: What Paris Teaches Us About Greener Transport
Key Takeaways
- Our transport systems are optimised for moving cars rather than people, and the environment pays the price in far more ways than carbon emissions alone.
- Electrifying vehicles is necessary but nowhere near sufficient to make transport genuinely better for the environment.
- Even when the political mood favoured climate action, most sustainable transport strategies failed to meaningfully reduce car use.
- Popular measures like free or cheap public transport fares rarely reduce driving substantially, yet we keep repeating them.
- Environmental messaging faltered because it assumed people would always prioritise the planet over pressing concerns like housing and the cost of living.
- Asking individuals to change their habits, without first giving them good alternatives, made the case for reform feel unreasonable.
- When the sustainable message failed to resonate, it left a vacuum that car, oil and road-building interests were quick to fill.
- Paris transformed its streets and dramatically increased cycling by selling a healthier, calmer and more liveable city rather than preaching about the climate.
- In many contexts, we should reframe sustainable transport plans around liveability and accessibility, with environmental gains as an outcome rather than the headline.
- Politicians need to paint a positive vision of everyday life, deliver it visibly, and hold their nerve against the loud naysayers.
What Next?
Do you need to rethink how you pursue sustainable transport?
Introduction
This week, I'm continuing my series on building better transport systems, this time through an environmental lens.
I could write a post listing all the ways our current transport system harms the environment, but it wouldn't tell most of you anything you don't already know. Our system is optimised for moving cars, not people, and the environment pays the price. Even if you set carbon emissions aside entirely, the damage is wide-ranging:
- Local air pollution (NOβ and particulates)
- Noise pollution
- Habitat fragmentation
- The urban heat island effect
- Toxic run-off from tyre wear
- Loss of wildlife and biodiversity
Nor do I want to go over the case against relying on electrification alone, which I've written about previously. Switching to EVs is necessary, but it is nowhere near sufficient.
Instead, I want to tackle another issue. Despite years of strategies, targets and warnings, progress on making transport greener has been painfully slow, and now there is a growing backlash against even the modest gains we have made. Why has the environmental case for better transport systems struggled to win people over, and what should we be doing differently?
The Bad News
Let me start with the bad news. Even when the political mood favoured action on the environment, progress on transport in most places was glacially slow. Plenty of strategies put sustainability in their titles or, more often, their vision statements. But few were implemented in ways that genuinely moved the needle, measured by what matters: fewer car trips and less environmental harm.
Worse, we have often spent large sums on measures that do little to reduce car use, and then repeated them. Free or heavily discounted public transport fares are a good example. They are popular, but the evidence consistently shows they mostly attract people who would otherwise have walked, cycled or already used public transport, rather than drivers.
Now the mood has turned. Resistance to changing our transport systems for environmental reasons is growing, and in some places the modest gains we did make are being rolled back. So what went wrong?
In short, we built our case around asking people to change their habits to tackle the "climate crisis" and save the planet. That approach contained three mistakes.
The first was assuming the environment was, and would remain, a top priority for most people. Polling has consistently shown that for many, it ranks well below healthcare, education, housing and the cost of living. When the context shifted, with housing becoming less affordable, inflation rising and wages falling behind, politicians who led with the environment began to look out of touch with the daily struggles of ordinary people.
The second was putting the burden on individuals. People were told to drive less, buy an EV, or switch to public transport, cycling or walking. For many, giving up the car is hard to imagine, and our failure to provide good alternatives made the ask feel even less reasonable.
The third was leaving a vacuum. Because our message failed to resonate with large parts of the population, others stepped in to speak to them: car manufacturers, oil companies, road builders and road-focused transport agencies. Their message has been simple and effective. Spending on public transport, walking and cycling is a waste of taxpayers' money, and it makes life worse for drivers by slowing them down and adding to congestion.
Why did we make these mistakes? I think two factors played a part.
First, many politicians genuinely cared about the environment but assumed that if they were earnest enough and used alarming language like "climate crisis", the public would accept what was essentially a negative vision of giving things up.
Second, groupthink. Most of the institutions that shape transport policy, such as government departments, agencies and universities, are run by people who are relatively well off and who often rank the environment as a high priority. They are far from representative of the wider public, creating a blind spot about what would actually work for ordinary people.
The result is enormous effort for very little progress, and now mounting pressure to reverse what little we achieved.
Is there any reason for hope? Fortunately, there is.
The Good News
A few cities have transformed their transport systems for the better in recent years, and tellingly, they didn't do it by preaching about the environment. One of the best-known examples is Paris.
Anne Hidalgo became Mayor of Paris in 2014 and served two terms, stepping aside earlier this year. Over those twelve years, Paris underwent a radical transformation: streets pedestrianised, hundreds of kilometres of high-quality bike lanes built, and parking removed. The results speak for themselves. By 2024, cycling accounted for 11.2% of all trips in Paris, and in 2025 it reached as high as 18.9% at peak hours.
What's striking is how she sold it. Her core message wasn't about a climate crisis or net zero, and it wasn't primarily anti-car. Instead, she framed transport reform around what mattered in people's daily lives: health, liveability and convenience. She promised a greener, calmer, more attractive city, and crucially, she delivered it.
Nor did she lecture people about changing their habits. She changed the streets and the systems, making it easy and appealing for people to choose differently without being told to.
In short, Hidalgo treated transport reform as a quality-of-life project. It was less about punishing drivers and more about giving Parisians cleaner air, safer streets and neighbourhoods where everyday life works without a car.
That doesn't mean it was easy. She faced fierce, loud and sustained opposition, and her approach was far from universally popular. But the changes themselves proved harder to argue against once people could see and use them. When Parisians chose her successor this year, they elected a candidate who campaigned on keeping the city on the same path, not one who promised to tear it up.
Where Should We Go From Here?
So, taking the lessons from Paris, what should we do differently if we want more sustainable transport systems?
In many contexts, I'd start with something that will upset some people: drop the word "sustainability" from our transport strategies. Take the EU's Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans. The label speaks to people who already prioritise the environment, and does little for everyone else. I'd rename them around something that resonates more widely, such as Liveable Urban Mobility Plans, focused on how easily people can reach jobs, schools, shops and the other things that make up daily life.
The plans themselves also need rewriting so they genuinely focus on making people's lives better: calmer, healthier, and more attractive places, where getting around is easier and more convenient for everyone. The environmental benefits will still be there, but as an outcome rather than the headline.
And a plan, however well framed, is not enough. It has to be delivered. That is where politicians need to get much better at two things. First, painting a positive, tangible picture of what their city or town could be like, one that people can imagine themselves living in. Second, standing firm against the loud naysayers, confident that if they deliver visible improvements to everyday life, most voters will come with them.
Conclusion
The environmental case for better transport hasn't weakened. If anything, we understand the harms our car-centric systems cause better than ever. What has weakened is our ability to win the argument, and I believe that is largely down to how we have made it.
For too long, we asked people to make sacrifices for a crisis that, for many, felt distant compared with paying the rent or the rising cost of the weekly shop. We told them to change their habits, often without giving them good alternatives. And in doing so, we left the field open to those who want to keep things as they are.
Paris shows there is another way. Anne Hidalgo didn't win by convincing Parisians to care more about the planet. She won by showing them a city they wanted to live in, then building it. The environmental benefits followed, but they were never the headline.
That is the lesson I think we need to take. If we want transport systems that are better for the environment, we need to stop leading with the environment. Lead instead with what people care more about: calmer streets, healthier lives, and the freedom to get where they need to go easily. Then deliver on it. Do that, and the environmental gains will come as a welcome by-product, not a hard sell most people have stopped listening to or are reacting against.