After a couple days here in Paris, my initial impression is that the War on the Car has not been won. They’re everywhere despite any claims you might have heard to the contrary. Sure, there are a shit tonne of bikes, bike lanes, pedestrians, natch, this is Paris after all, pedestrianized streets and spaces. 
Which is the point, isn’t it.
It’s never been about banning cars, this self-declared war upon them. It’s been about ending their dominance on the hierarchy of mobility modes. The car first and everything else an afterthought way of thinking, of urban planning. Like teaching toddlers, it’s been about fairness and sharing.
What you notice when you move around a place that has flipped the post-war script on city transportation systems, a place like Paris that has been doing that for a decade or so now, is the near absence of aggression on the streets, of mutual antagonism. Road space is not contested and fought over. It is shared, shared equitably. You know how you know that? The near absence of car horns. I’m not sure I’ve heard an angry blare here so far. The occasional quick reminder of a bleat or two. Nothing more.
The car horn as it is often heard in its native habitat of carcentricity is a bellowing alpha demand. I need to get moving. I need to get moving now. You are all in my way. My needs are to be met with no further delay. As a matter of fact, I do own the road.
But when you’re not treated like royalty, you come not to expect the royal treatment.
The other motorized sounds of car travel also fade away into the deep background noise in places like Paris. Sure, along the major inner-city thoroughfares like the quais of the left and right banks, the hum of vehicular noise is noticeable. But step back even just a block and you immediately notice its near absence. There’s no revving or racing of engines. The squeals of tires and brakes. The general din of automotive operations that make auto-dependant cities like Toronto seem loud do not cast a wider web in the core hub of Paris.
So you can sit in a small park in any old arrondisement and barely notice as the cars go by (and they do go by) because the cars are traveling at a respectful human speed.
I was walking up a side street in the Latin Quarter a couple days ago. A fairly narrow, one-way (for vehicular traffic, both ways for bikes) street that was used, I noted, by cars, trucks and fucking buses. Buses, along a tiny, medieval street. I stood on the sidewalk and watched for a bit. Everything and everyone kept flowing. No angry honking. No yelling. No… nothing. Just people making their way around in the mode of their choosing, realizing the given parameters of those particular choices. No one dominant. No one demanding unequal treatment.
Later on I noticed car traffic lined up on another side street, stuck behind a stopped delivery truck dropping off its wares to a retail establishment. Again, there were no leaning on horns, no shouts of displeasure, demands that the way be cleared. There was simply a quiet acceptance that if you choose to drive from point A to point B in Paris, getting stuck behind a delivery van or a stopped taxi cab just comes with the territory. Don’t like it? Leave your car at home.
Well, we’re not Paris, we’re not Europe, is inevitably the last line of defense in places like Toronto. It’s different here. Our cities are built differently, built for cars, not bikes or buses or people on foot. 
Until we tackle that sense of entitlement, the primacy of the car driver, what amounts to the emotional development of a toddler, I want! I want! I wantIwantIwant!, we’ll forever be mired in the noisy bedlam of traffic. We’ll forever be going to places like Paris and Amsterdam and Copenhagen and Stockholm and Montreal(!), etc. & etc., and enjoying the vibe that comes with the freedom from automobiles and forever be wondering, Why can’t that happen where we live?