[pwinnski]

In civil engineering circles, it is well understood that there are many measures that can reduce "natural" speeds, like "The number of street parking bays is being halved and ... Cycle lanes have increased and streets are being redesigned to make districts more pedestrian friendly," from the linked article.

I'm not sure how you got the wrong idea that this is "[c]hanging a bunch of signs," especially since HN guidelines suggest I assume you read the linked article.

[throwaway0a5e]

Read between the lines.

If they were breaking out the heavy equipment and actually changing the infrastructure they would be trumpeting it as an infrastructure initiative, urban makeover/revitalization or something like that.

To assume that this is more than a simple regulatory change is to assume that the Paris government is wholly staffed with people too stupid to capitalize politically on a major infrastructure change.

They are messaging this as a regulatory change and talking about how they're adding bike lanes (already rolling out steadily for a long time as roads get repainted and resurfaced) and continued phase out of cars from the city center.

Nothing will change, because nothing is changing. All the stuff they're talking about is stuff they're already doing. They're just changing some signs in other parts of the city as well as though that's expected to change anything (which it's not).

[pwinnski]

Don't be so quick to read between the lines that you forget to read the lines!

You seem to be confusing a BBC News article based in large part on tweets with a prime messaging push by the government.

As the article points out, many cycling lanes have been introduced. The infrastructure has been changing, is changing, and will continue to be changed, as both supporters and critics alike attest.

Your original tweet suggested that putting up new signs would have no effect because people drive whatever speed they feel is safe. This is true, which means it's notable that critics point out the average speed in Paris is already below this new lower limit. So either the infrastructure changes have had a positive effect and now it's time for the limit to catch up, or the traffic is bad and it's time for the limit to catch up.

Either way, your pessimism seems to be unsupported by any of the supplied evidence.