We now have the date. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on RTL this Monday that the speed limit on the ring road will increase to 50 km/h instead of the current 70 km/h starting October 1st.
“We have been working on it since 2018, it is not a new subject,” said Anne Hidalgo. “We have very unanimous votes in the Paris Council, it was also the centrists who had carried out all the work and obtained unanimity on this subject in 2018,” recalled the mayor of Paris on RTL.
The legacy of the Olympic Games
In an interview with the daily newspaper Ouest-France a few days ago, the mayor of Paris confirmed a desire that she has expressed since the end of her first term in 2019. “Yes, she [la vitesse du périphérique] will increase to a maximum of 50 km/h in October,” the elected official stated. A decision motivated, she said, by concerns for “public health for the 500,000 people who live nearby [du boulevard périphérique] ».
This project had been announced at the end of November 2023, and presented at that time as one of the legacies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games wanted by the City of Paris. Anne Hidalgo also wanted to perpetuate the Olympic route as a route intended for carpooling.
The decision of the mayor of Paris has not left the opposition indifferent, who have already expressed their disagreement with the first suggestions of moving to 50 km/h, like the president (Libres!) of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, or the resigning Minister of Transport, Patrice Vergriete.
