During an interview with Ouest-France, the mayor reaffirmed her desire to lower the speed limit on the ring road by 20 km/h. She is also putting pressure on the State to create a carpooling lane.
Drivers in the Paris region will have to ease off the gas when the new school year begins. In an interview with Ouest-France on Saturday, August 31, the mayor of Paris affirmed her desire to lower the maximum speed on the Paris ring road to 50 km/h.
“Yes, it will increase to a maximum of 50 km/h in October,” said the mayor.
The decision had already been taken in November 2023 when the Climate Plan was announced. Despite several objections raised by politicians and motorists, the Paris city hall persists.
“A public health measure”
Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport at the time, and his successor Patrice Vergriete, who has now resigned, took a stand against this reduction in the maximum authorized speed.
The latter had called on Anne Hidalgo not to “stigmatize people who are forced to take their car.” But she chose to maintain the schedule planned for the end of last year.
“It is a public health measure for the 500,000 people who live near the ring road,” she explains.
In May, David Belliard, deputy in charge of mobility and transport, had already assured on France Bleu Paris that “the ring road will be at 50km/h next autumn”.
A carpooling lane still desired
During her interview with our colleagues at Ouest France, the mayor of Paris also confirmed “that cars will not return to the Eiffel Tower at the end of the Games”. She also returned to the possibility of reserving a lane of the ring road for carpooling, taxis and public transport.
On this last point, it is the State that will have to make a decision, but Anne Hidalgo recalls the expenses already incurred to transform these roads during the Olympic and Paralympic Games and reaffirms her objective of fighting air pollution. “I will go all the way,” she assures.
Since the start of his first term in 2014 and despite opposition, the mayor has maintained his desire to reduce the importance of cars in and around the capital.
A subject that regularly creates tensions with his opponents at Paris City Hall and with the president of the region Valérie Pécresse, who accuses the municipality of “penalizing” drivers from the Paris region.
