As Paris continues to grapple with pollution, its Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has announced controversial plans to pedestrianise parts of the city centre.
The plans involve turning a one-kilometre, riverside portion of the city-centre from Place de la Concorde and the Pont Royal into a car-free zone and restricting east-west traffic on the River Seine’s right bank and the rue de Rivoli.
La marche à pied, c’est l’avenir ! @paris présente son nouveau plan piétons !
— David Belliard (@David_Belliard) November 17, 2023
Objectifs : améliorer, sécuriser et amplifier la pratique de la marche dans la capitale. Un mot d’ordre : priorité piétons !🚶♀️🦯🏃👩🦽
Suivez le fil 🧶⬇️ pic.twitter.com/1vMcZVZmzc
No more “nostalgia” for cars
“The idea is to go step by step towards the pedestrianisation of the city centre,” said Hildago. “It will remain open to vehicles belonging to local residents, the police, emergency services and for deliveries, but not to all comers.”
We must constantly remind people: the fewer cars there are, the less pollution there is.
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris
“We say clearly that our aim is the significant reduction in car traffic, as all the world’s large cities are doing,” she added.
In its journey towards becoming one of the world’s greenest cities, Paris has been working on cutting the number of journeys undertaken by car for some time but this came to a head earlier this year with a huge pollution peak that caused a 3.3km shutdown of car traffic in the city. Branding car infrastructure as “archaic”, Hildago said she would not give in to “nostalgia” from the automobile lobby.
65% of journeys on foot
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the reduction in city centre car traffic enabled the creation of so-called “coronapistes” for cyclists around the city. In addition to those, to the city’s “Plan Velo: Act 2” has been adding up to 130 kilometers (over 80 miles) of bike-safe pathways as well as safer parking.
But pedestrians are just as important, if not more so, than cyclists, city officials note. Deputy mayor David Belliard, launching the ‘pedestrian plan’ to make Paris more walkable, pointed out that “we hear a lot about cycling, but walking is also, and perhaps even more, at the heart of what we’re doing.
“It is the primary mode of transport within the city. It accounts for 65 percent of journeys.” Hailing the benefits of walking, Belliard said, “walking is free, it’s emission-free, it’s noise-free, it’s good for your health and, as we see every time we pedestrianise, it’s also good for local businesses.”
“So it’s a major priority – one that has been largely forgotten for decades in favour of the all-car – and one that we want to accelerate.”
140 football pitches
The pillars of the plan include adding another 70 hectares of pedestrianised space to the cityscape by 2030, making a total of 100 hectares (around 140 football pitches’ worth).
Separating car, bike and pedestrian infrastructure and giving pedestrians longer to use crossings to improve safety are further important aspects, as well as repairing pavements, and providing fountains and shelters to counterbalance the effects of globally hotter temperatures, are also elements factored in to the pedestrianisation mission.
