La traffic, soon to be reduced on the ring road? During a press conference held on Wednesday May 18, the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo announced that she wanted to make the ring road a “green belt” of the capital, promising to revegetate 10 hectares and plant 70,000 trees by reducing the number of lanes. The “Olympic lane”, reserved for participants in the 2024 Olympics (athletes, officials, rescue), will then be reserved for buses, taxis and carpooling, said his deputy (EELV) for mobility David Belliard, for whom these two measures will allow take 80,000 vehicles off the road.
The ring road now most often has 4 lanes per direction of traffic. “Our objective is 2 x 3 lanes on the entire infrastructure”, announced David Belliard. The 35 km circular ring, which will celebrate its half-century in 2023, is a “grey belt that we would like to see transformed into a green belt” by 2030, said the former PS presidential candidate, which wants to offer the 500,000 inhabitants living on either side of this fast axis a “more harmonious, more pleasant living environment”.
Faced with the climate challenge and to protect everyone’s health, the ring road is changing!
�� Follow the conference live! https://t.co/LoN0xysDi1— Paris (@Paris) May 18, 2022
In place in 2030?
To carry out this project, Anne Hidalgo, whose first municipal mandate had been marked by a long politico-judicial fight to transform the roads on the banks of the right bank into a pedestrian promenade, intends to carry out “all legal consultations” and promises ” to listen” to motorists, but also to “truck drivers and shopkeepers”. The horizon of 2030, after the end of his second term (2026), must allow “people to be able to adapt” to this change, she further said. It should face radical opposition on this file from the right-wing president of the Île-de-France region Valérie Pécresse, who in 2021 asked the State to reconsider this municipal infrastructure as a regional infrastructure and asked “for impact studies” before the town hall launches its projects.
Another former presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse had organized an online consultation in which 90% of voters opposed the “removal” of a lane on the ring road. On the ring road, 40% of journeys are from suburb to suburb and 80% of users are non-Parisians, depending on the region.
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