The announcement was made by Paris City Hall on Friday. In total, 70 Parisian intersections will be affected during the Olympic period.
This device is being tested until the end of October at crossroads”around the Olympic and Paralympic Games sites of Paris-Centre, Paris Ouest, Porte de la Chapelle and Bercy, as well as around city hall“, indicates the decree dated Tuesday and published Friday in the Official Journal.
For the Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11), the city hall says it has equipped 2,500 traffic lights with new-generation sound boxes to equip crossings at complex intersections and large boulevards.
The remote controls to activate the sound messages of the traffic lights that it distributes free of charge – more than 200 this year – will be offered to visually impaired tourists on strategic sites (Orly and Roissy airports, Gare du Nord, tourist office) during the Olympics.
Of the 20,700 pedestrian lights in the capital, 12,900 are currently equipped with a sound module to help the visually impaired cross, or 60%, the municipality further indicates.
Around 70 intersections in Paris, located near the Olympic sites, have been equipped with sound boxes in French and English to help the blind and partially sighted cross, Paris City Hall told AFP on Friday after the publication of a decree authorizing this experiment.
