Summary
- Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is increasing restrictions on private vehicle travel in the French capital.
- In November 2024, a ban on private cars travelling through the centre of Paris was implemented.
- Bloomburg reports that the announcement of the scheme start date gave drivers less than one week’s notice to prepare for the car travel ban.
- Known as the “Zone à Trafic Limité” (ZTL) which translates as “Limited Traffic Zone”, the scheme is reported to be part of a plan to halve the number of vehicle journeys travelling through a 5 square kilometer area of central Paris.
- Automobile travellers will need exemptions and permits to move within the restricted zone with fines planned to be introduced in mid-2025.
- In the 2020 Mayoral election, Anne Hidalgo campaigned on a platform of transforming Paris into a 15-minute city, install more cycleways, and removing 60,000 car parks.
- The Paris Mayor and city council have also recently voted to ban sports utility vehicles (SUVs) “…from within Paris’ perimeter, along with any marketing material that promotes their use” according to reports in the Daily Telegraph UK.
- These moves to ban SUVs in Paris follow a case where the driver of a Mercedes SUV is accused of murdering a cyclist in a “road rage incident”.
- Further bans on older petrol and diesel vehicles travelling in Paris are reported to be scheduled for 2025 with a camera-based automatic fine system expected to start operating in 2026.
Quotes
“The Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has made phasing out vehicles and creating a “15-minute city” a key pillar of her offering at the launch of her re-election campaign.
The Socialist politician wants to encourage more self-sufficient communities within each arrondissement of the French capital, with grocery shops, parks, cafes, sports facilities, health centres, schools and even workplaces just a walk or bike ride away.
Called the “ville du quart d’heure” – the quarter-hour city – the aim is to offer Parisians what they need on or near their doorstep to ensure an “ecological transformation” of the capital into a collection of neighbourhoods. This, she said, would reduce pollution and stress, creating socially and economically mixed districts to improve overall quality of life for residents and visitors.”
Paris mayor unveils ’15-minute city’ plan in re-election campaign, The Guardian, 07 February 2020.
“The so-called “limited traffic zone” (ZTL), home to about 100,000 people and 11,000 businesses, is part of a broader push by the socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, to restrict traffic and encourage cycling and public transport use across the car-clogged city. The zone covers the first, second, third and fourth arrondissements, a 5.5 sq km area that incorporates much of the historical centre of Paris and a number of its best-known monuments including the Louvre, Tuileries gardens and much of the Marais. The city centre mayor, Ariel Weil, said it was “an important step that will be implemented gradually, starting with an educational phase”. He added: “It aims both to reduce and fluidify traffic for the good of public services, safety, residents, craftsmen and retailers.”
Paris drivers warned of fines as city begins limiting traffic in parts of centre,The Guardian, 05 November 2024.
“But some motorists may have been caught by surprise to find the city center shut to cars on Monday — the policy’s start date was only announced on Thursday, giving drivers little time to prepare. The measure is just the latest in a long series of traffic control and pedestrianization measures in the French capital aimed at reducing congestion and pollution in the heart of the city. And like many of its predecessors, it arrives with some controversy.”
Paris Traffic Ban: City Steps Up Campaign Against Car Congestion, Bloomberg, 05 November 2024.
“Paris’ new zone is not the first of its kind in Europe. Brussels already imposed restrictions on through traffic in 2022 as part of that car-clogged city’s wide-ranging “Good Move” mobility makeover; Amsterdam proposed similar in 2023. Madrid’s zone is focused on air pollution, limiting access to zero-emissions vehicles or drivers with a pre-booked parking space. (That policy is now facing a legal challenge.) Dublin’s introduction of so-called “bus gates” along the River Liffey, through which driving a car is banned, also blocked through traffic in the city core when introduced this year.”
Paris Traffic Ban: City Steps Up Campaign Against Car Congestion, Bloomberg, 05 November 2024.
“Based on the “segmented city” ideas suggested by Carlos Moreno, a “smart city” professor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, the “city of fifteen minutes” will include making key thoroughfares in Paris inaccessible to motor vehicles; turning currently traffic-choked intersections into pedestrian plazas, and creating “children streets” next to schools.
Green spaces, vegetable plots, and playgrounds will take the place of car parking, should Hidalgo get a second term, she promises.”
Every Street In Paris To Be Cycle-Friendly By 2024, Promises Mayor, Forbes, 05 March 2020.
“Ratcheting up tensions this month is a new policy banning motorists from driving through the four arrondissements, or districts, in the heart of the city, rekindling the argument that Ms. Hidalgo’s anti-car stance is impractical, bad for business, and caters mostly to wealthy liberals who can afford to live in the city center. “She is putting a garrote around Paris,” Patrick Aboukrat, a boutique owner in the fashionable Marais neighborhood, said this week, placing his hands on his neck for effect.
The debate in the French capital reflects the challenges facing policymakers around the world as they ask constituents to alter ingrained life habits in the fight against climate change.”
Death of Cyclist in Paris Lays Bare Divide in Mayor’s War Against Cars, The New York Times, 29 November 2024
Article Details
Headline: Paris Traffic Ban: City Steps Up Campaign Against Car Congestion
Author: Feargus O’Sullivan
Published on: 05 November 2024
Published by: Bloomberg
Headline: Paris drivers warned of fines as city begins limiting traffic in parts of centre
Author: Jon Henley
Published on: 05 November 2024
Published by: The Guardian
Headline: Paris mayor unveils ’15-minute city’ plan in re-election campaign
Author: Kim Willsher
Published on: 07 Feburary 2020
Published by: The Guardian
Headline: Every Street In Paris To Be Cycle-Friendly By 2024, Promises Mayor
Author: Carlton Reid
Published on: 05 March 2020
Published by: Forbes
Headline: Paris’ socialist mayor backs call to ban ‘killer’ SUVs
Author: Vivian Song
Published on: 25 November 2024
Published by: Daily Telegraph UK and the NZ Herald
Link:
Headline: Death of Cyclist in Paris Lays Bare Divide in Mayor’s War Against Cars
Author: Richard Fausset and Ségolène Le Stradic
Published on: 29 November 2024
Published by: The New York Times
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/world/europe/cyclist-death-paris-paul-varry-cars.html
Headline: What you should know about Paris’ expanded vehicle ban in 2025
Author: James Harrington
Published on: 30 September 2024
Published by: The Local
Link: https://www.thelocal.fr/20240927/what-you-should-know-about-paris-expanded-vehicle-ban-in-2025
Further reading on this issue:
Information Sheet: 20-Minute Cities and Smart Cities in New Zealand
