The thing is overall the metro is decent as is the bus service and they are always full yet there are still so many cars on the road I wonder where all the people come from tbh. There are also lots of alternative options available with Lime e-scooters and Vélo'v bikes all over the place but still what feels like a million cars!

I used to live in London so a lot of traffic isn't new to me but during peak times Lyon is a nightmare so I just avoid it as much as possible.

Public transportation, bikes, scooters are all good for people living in Lyon. I suppose the cars are people living or working outside Lyon.

New mayor of Lyon is a member of the Green party.

There were a lot of ecologist mayors (a "green wave" according to the media) at the last municipal elections in France. It's a dividing issue. More and more people are concerned about environmental issues. But at the same time, there is a universal hate for ecologists.

This doesn't seem to be true? Annie Hidalgo won re-election and has pretty decent popularity ratings. Maybe they're hated out in the countryside or whatever, but the actual citizens of the cities run by these "ecologist" mayors do seem to be generally happy with them.

I really wish we had one here in NYC. Only 22% of households in Manhattan where I live even own cars, yet an ungodly amount of the total public space is given over to cars, including two whole lanes of free parking on most blocks. Meanwhile the sidewalks are narrow and often full of trash bags because we can't even put in dumpsters lest some sacred parking spots be removed, and delivery vehicles are constantly double-parked or blocking bike lanes since there's no delivery-only spots.

I think the majority of people here would be in favor of a mayor that de-emphasized cars and got a lot of this traffic off our streets, thus making it more pleasant for people on foot.