Cars in Paris: Anne Hidalgo confirms the “limited traffic zone” for early 2024

The limited traffic zone (ZTL) in the center of Paris, which aims to prohibit traffic in the hypercentre to vehicles without reason to stop, will see the light of day in early 2024, just before the Olympic Games, confirmed the mayor PS Anne Hidalgo in an interview with AFP. “The ZTL will be done well at the start of 2024”reaffirmed the elected socialist, who had decided at the beginning of 2022 to postpone the implementation of this flagship project for her second term of office for a year and a half.

This ZTL must drastically reduce the place of the car in the hypercentre of the capital – the first four arrondissements, plus the parts of the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements located between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine – via the ban on so-called traffic transit, which represents 50% of current traffic, according to the town hall.

“Take time”

The majority on the left had justified this postponement by the need to “take time” an impact study and a public inquiry which must involve residents, transport authorities, traders and department stores. “We keep the deadlines”says Anne Hidalgo to AFP. “We will send our file to the Environmental Authority in the coming weeks for a public inquiry at the end of the summer”.

At the same time, the former PS candidate in the presidential election must convince the prefect of police Laurent Nunez, whose predecessor, Didier Lallement, had expressed “strong reservations about the project as envisaged” by the town hall. “We are still discussing, in very good intelligence, the perimeter with the police headquarters. These arrangements will not prevent it from continuing to carry out its mission of protecting Parisians.promises Anne Hidalgo.

“Difficulties for the movement of emergency and police services”

The police headquarters is indeed located in the heart of the perimeter planned for the ZTL, on the Ile de la Cité. For the former prefect, the town hall project risked generating “difficulties for the movement of emergency and police services on the outskirts of the area” and a “negative impact for the economic activity of the capital”. Relations between the prefecture and the town hall have improved markedly since the change of prefect, even if opposition persists, such as on the project to pedestrianize the axis of the Eiffel Tower, suspended due to opposition from the State. .

At the beginning of March, the environmentalist majority of Lyon unveiled a plan aimed at pedestrianizing and limiting motor vehicle traffic in the hypercentre of Lyon by 2026. Unauthorized motorists will therefore have to bypass ZTLs, already deployed in cities like Nantes, Rennes and Grenoble