Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has promised to impose a 30 km/h limit across the whole city and to halve the number of on-street parking spaces, if she is re-elected.
In almost all of Paris's streets, a speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour could be imposed in the coming years. The promise was put forward by the coalition backing the candidacy for a second term of the current mayor of the French capital, Anne Hidalgo. The old 50 kilometres per hour limit will in fact remain only on certain major thoroughfares, such as the avenue des Champs-Elysées.
The decision is the fruit of the agreement reached between the Socialist Party (Ps), to which Hidalgo belongs, and the Greens of Europe Ecologie Les Verts (Eelv). The latter, in fact, obtained an excellent result in the first round of the municipal elections (held before the lockdown caused by coronavirus): their candidate David Belliard came close to 11 per cent of the vote. Anne Hidalgo received 29.3 per cent of the vote, hence the two parties' desire to join forces ahead of the second round.
"Fighting pollution is fundamental to protecting public health. That is why we will continue to reduce the space given over to cars in our city," explains the manifesto published by Hidalgo and Belliard on 16 June. Indeed, at the end of 2018, the council of the Grand Paris metropolis — the body that also encompasses all the municipalities surrounding the capital — had already approved the introduction of a "low-emission zone" ("zone à faibles émissions"). This is an area bounded by the A86 ring road, within which 79 municipalities are located.
The aim of the French municipalities is to progressively restrict access for the most polluting vehicles. This will culminate in 2024, when access will be banned for all diesel-engine cars. The project will then conclude in 2030, when the plan is to ban all petrol cars as well.
The idea of reducing the maximum speed across Paris is born of the same policy. Just as is the decision to remove half of the parking spaces on the streets, "in order to widen the pavements." What changes, thanks to the agreement with the ecologists, is the pace and the scope of the measures. In previous years, the city of Paris had already imposed the 30 km/h limit on certain streets: the idea now is to make the rule uniform across the board.
All of this serves three objectives. The first is linked to the reduction of pollutants, such as fine particulate matter. Harmful to human health, and even suspected of carrying pathogens such as coronavirus. The second aim is to improve road safety, taking into account the fact that accidents were responsible for 34 deaths and more than six thousand injuries in 2019. Finally, there is hope of reducing noise pollution, particularly at night, "when the 30 km/h speed limit is often exceeded, with consequences for the health of residents."
To this end, innovative acoustic speed cameras (already trialled in recent months) will also be installed, with the aim of fining excessively noisy cars and motorbikes.
Paris will not be the first French city to have chosen to drastically reduce the maximum speed limit. In Grenoble in particular, in the Auvergne-Rhône Alpes region, Green mayor Eric Piolle decided years ago to extend the 30 kilometres per hour limit to the entire city (with rare exceptions).
As in Hidalgo's case, the only ecologist mayor of a major French city will in all likelihood also be re-elected: in the first round he received 46.7 per cent of the vote.
