Ça Change La Vie...

Pollution in Paris?  A life-changer? 

Only if you're a cab driver. 

We live with air pollution in LA all the time.  On a good day the sky looks blue -- until you go to San Diego where the sky is much blue-er.  We don't think too much about it unless it's really bad.  An orange sunset, caused by smog, is gorgeous. 

Now Paris has a big air pollution problem.  It is caused by a confluence of warmer than average daytime temperatures, colder than average nighttime temperatures and lack of rain and wind.  The last two help to move it along to somewhere else, I don't think it ever goes away, it just moves.

For the last few days, public transportation has been free so that people will leave their cars at home.  There are no bikes in the Velib stand, no cars in the Autolib parking spaces near our apartment. Everyone's using them to get around. 

Now, you can only drive on even or odd days depending on your license plate number.  That means that 50% of the cars can't drive today. 

Naturally, taxis and carpools are exempt from this rule.  Our cab driver yesterday was ecstatic.  There were no traffic jams, no cars on the road.  Her exact words to us were, "that changes life".  How simple that was.