Assignment: Road wars - cycling in Paris

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On 15 Oct 2024, a 27-year-old cyclist was killed in a bike lane in Paris. His name was Paul Varry. He was run over by a car after an argument with a driver. What happened to Paul was extreme, but it resonated with many Parisians. For Paris is undergoing a cycling revolution. The city has created a vast network of bike lanes, introduced new restrictions for cars. The number of cyclists has soared. But there have also been conflicts, as cars, bikes and pedestrians try to navigate the new balance of power. So is Paris’s plan working? Is this transformation the future for other major cities? Anna Holligan goes to Paris for Assignment, to find out.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service with me Anna Holligan.
0:09.0	This story begins at a crime scene on a main road here in Paris. At 5.30pm, around this time,
0:17.6	on the 15th of October, 24, a 27-year-old man was killed here on this street,
0:24.2	at this exact spot. His name was Paul Vary and his death made headlines because of who he was
0:31.9	and how he died. Paul Vary was a cyclist and he was killed in a bike lane, run over by a car after an argument with a driver.
0:42.6	Paul was leaving work one evening. He was going down the bike lane here.
0:47.5	There's a traffic light at the end of the street. It's very busy. The car's backup a lot.
0:54.2	Coronet Redo has cycled back to the scene for the first time since Paul's death.
0:59.2	It's a busy junction.
1:00.9	There is a bike lane.
1:02.1	It's separated with a raised edge.
1:04.6	But there's also a small street on our right,
1:07.9	often used by cars as a shortcut to avoid getting stuck at the traffic lights.
1:12.9	When traffic is backed up at the light, you sometimes see cars driving on the bike lane
1:18.7	to bypass the traffic and take the shortcut to the right.
1:23.2	So Paul was on the bike lane, a car took that shortcut on the bike lane, ran over his foot,
1:29.7	and Paul, of course, got angry. He slapped the front of the car, and then the car backed up
1:37.8	and ran over him and killed him.
1:39.9	The driver ran over Paul's foot. He bound on the bonnet. The driver backed up, reversed, and then ran over Paul.
1:49.5	This was not an accident.
1:52.5	It was an unimaginable.
1:54.4	It was an unimaginable shock.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.