“the challenge is to improve air quality”

Extended to Crit'air 3 vehicles, the Lyon ZFE (low emissions zone) is the big news at the start of 2023. It concerns 60,000 to 160,000 cars depending on the figures and could prove to be a very unpopular measure in one year of the metropolitan elections. “The challenge is to improve air quality, so we are completely ready to do that and above all ready to support residents. So for three years, we have been working with businesses, with residents to try to put in place a system that can work because we know that it is obviously complicated for many people”, recognizes the vice-president of the Lyon Metropolis in charge of mobility. He recalls the existence of exemptions for small riders or professionals.

While the ZFE must be extended to all diesel vehicles in 2028, Jean-Charles Kohlhaas assures that the situation is not definitive: “This air quality is improving. As we have said, it is improving more quickly in the metropolis of Lyon than in all other French cities because we have put in place measures, because traffic is decreasing, because we have a public transport network which is increasingly developed and which was already a lot before. So if we continue to improve sufficiently and in 2028 we reach thresholds which. are interesting, we will not prohibit the Crit'air 2 in 2028″.

The full transcription of the interview with Jean-Charles Kohlhaas

Hello everyone and welcome, you are watching 6 minutes flat, the daily meeting of the Lyon Capitale editorial staff and today we welcome Jean-Charles Kohlhaas. You are vice-president of the metropolis in charge of mobility, I wanted to come back with you to the establishment on January 1, 2025 of the ZFE for Crit'air 3 vehicles, so basically we are on diesels and the most elders. Overall this concerns between 60,000 or 160,000 vehicles according to the various studies, it is a measure which can be criticized, which is often presented by your opponents as an area of ​​strong exclusion since it would necessarily impact the poorest households which do not were unable to change cars. You can't make an omelette without breaking an egg?

So first of all, the EPZs are a measure that was put in place by Europe in 2008, France waited until 2021. The governments backed down and they maintained the obligation for the metropolis of Paris and the metropolis of Lyon to set up an ZFE, so it is not a project of the metropolis of Lyon, it is a project of the State and we are obliged to do it.

But you assume it sooner? It is an obligation that you shoulder with, I imagine, more ease than the budget cuts that will be imposed on you.

Of course, the challenge is to improve air quality so we are completely ready to do that and above all ready to support residents. So for three years, we have been working with businesses, with residents to try to put in place a system that can work because we know that it is obviously complicated for many people. So first on the number of cars. If we actually count all the cars registered in the Rhône, it is 160,000. We can also count all those in France, we are at 1 million 66,000. In reality, in practice, we did a count by a external design office, neutral, 45,000 to 50,000 Crit'air 3 vehicles.

The 160,000 are the Lyon town planning agency…

But that does not mean that the vehicles are circulating and even less that they are circulating in the ZFE. So that's the first point. Among those who come to the EPZ, there are those who come occasionally to go out. On a daily basis, they take public transport, but to go to a restaurant or the cinema in the evening, they take their car. There, they are entitled to a small rider exemption that we have put in place which gives 52 days per year of access to the ZFE, even with a Crit'air 3. And then we have those who work and who are rather poor and who therefore have old cars, who work staggered hours, which start after 9 p.m. or before 6 a.m. We have put in place an exemption upon declaration by the employer for people who work staggered hours. Furthermore, we are developing all alternatives, public transport, of course active modes. And then we had put in place, we have always put in place, assistance for the renewal of vehicles with a subsidy from the metropolis which was added to the possible 6,000 euros in state aid. But the Barnier government decided just before being resigned to eliminate this state aid, which is completely ridiculous. We have two ZFEs which are maintained, Paris and Lyon, and we can no longer help the inhabitants of Paris and Lyon to change vehicles for cleaner vehicles. But hey, consistency and logic are not necessarily markers of our current governments.

This social dimension exists, it is a reality. It will be even more tangible in 2028 with the expansion of the ZFE to Crit'air 2 vehicles. Could this finally lead you to take this into account, to step back, especially now that the government is helping less than it didn't do it before?

So you know, I say it again, our objective and the objective of Europe and the French State is normally air quality. We still have tens of thousands of children who are sick from pollution and in particular from nitrogen dioxide which is mainly produced by diesel vehicles. This air quality is improving. As we have said, it is improving more quickly in the metropolis of Lyon than in all other French cities because we have put in place measures, because traffic is decreasing, because we have a transport network in common which is more and more developed and which it was already much before. So if we continue to improve sufficiently and in 2028 we reach interesting thresholds, we will not ban the Crit'air 2 in 2028.

It takes three consecutive years below the thresholds. Does that mean it’s happening now?

Of course this is happening now and especially since Europe has decided that in 2030 the thresholds will drop drastically since they are halved. Well, the WHO wanted to divide by four but Europe only divided by two. If we reach or if we have a trajectory which tells us that we are capable of reaching the thresholds planned by Europe in 2030, we will not put in place the ban on Crit'air 2. We will discuss it again in full. case. On the other hand, if we do not achieve them, we will be forced to put them in place because otherwise France is condemned by Europe and that means fines amounting to billions of euros.

For the moment, the ZFE is a reality, however it is a tool which is absolutely not controlled. The Rhône prefecture fined only 10 motorists last year, the city of Lyon, which is a little more zealous, fined 8,000. The small wheeler device makes it very easy to get around. Finally you can take your vehicle every day since you must register either before or within 24 hours afterwards. So if you are checked, you have 24 hours to register and regularize. The only problem is if you have checked yourself there more than 52 times. Given the zeal shown by the police, there is little chance of this happening. So basically for the moment it's useless…

So you're right and at the same time it's not too annoying. You are right in 2019…

It doesn't bother you if a law isn't enforced?

In 2019, the then Minister of Transport Elisabeth Borne promised David Kimelfeld, then president of the metropolis, radars in 2020. Now they are expected by the end of 2026. So the State is not there, the State backs down each time. Exactly like the other control methods, we have 200 speed radars waiting and which the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Darmanin, blocked for months and years, I don't know if we will one day have them. We have a real concern with road crime in France in particular. Afterwards, is it really annoying? Today we have two types of controls, as you said, the municipal police who mainly control parking and who have many other things to do, so they don't just do that.

Villeurbanne said, we will not do it because we consider that it is
socially unjust…

No, he didn't say he won't do it, because first of all a mayor can't say I don't respect the law, a mayor can't say to a sworn police officer you don't enforce the law. law, it's impossible. But that's not your priority. On the other hand, you have many other things to do and we know that the municipal police have many other things to do, so I have no problem with that. But it is also a way of dissociating themselves from a measure that they perhaps find socially unjust. we all agree on that, I have no problem with what Cédric Van Styvendael said, I completely share his analysis. I know that the municipal police of Lyon impose, as you said, a few thousand fines per year with almost a million vehicles circulating every day in the metropolis of Lyon, that still doesn't amount to much control. . That said, the prefect, given that the radars are still postponed, said we are going to carry out national police checks on traffic. Likewise, the national police have other work to do, many others, and therefore they will not carry out daily checks. It's not very serious. The challenge is that the information gets out, that more and more residents feel concerned and come to the mobility agency or call for information, to be supported, to change their practice or to change their vehicle, and little by little it falls into place. If in two years, two years a little more, we have radars that control, people have had time to adapt, to get used to it and it will have worked well. This is my objective, it is not a violent measure, my objective is not the stick, it is rather how do we support people so that this happens, because the issue it’s still human health.