Central Paris closed to transit traffic

The new sign was hidden under a large dark cover. At 5 p.m., this Monday, November 4, Place de la Bastille, at the entrance to Rue Saint-Antoine, the artery leading to the very center of Paris, a man dressed in a fluorescent orange vest, safety shoes on his feet, climbed the four steps of a gleaming stepladder to reveal a red circle drawn in the middle of a large white rectangle bordered in red.

Smile, photos. The moment is intended to be solemn: the sign marks the entry into the limited traffic zone (ZTL). And the entry into force, Tuesday, November 5, of this device, unprecedented in Paris, but widely tested elsewhere, which prohibits the circulation of any motorized vehicle which does not have a good reason to go within this famous perimeter.

“It’s the first ZTL in Paris, but not the first in France or in Europe. Italy did it, in our turn. We no longer want the center of the capital to be a shortcut to cross France and Europe”summarizes Ariel Weil, the socialist mayor of Paris Center, standing at the foot of the stepladder, alongside three deputies of Anne Hidalgo. A hundred other signs were to appear in the landscape in the process, all planted at the limit of 1^is2^e3^e et 4^e districts. In addition to the first model, which indicates entry into the zone − Paris Center, with the exception of Île Saint-Louis and Île de la Cité −, another warns motorists and bikers of the approach imminent of this, the third of their release.

Reconquest of public space

“There is nothing revolutionary about these signs, we see them everywhere in Italy,” slipped Patrick Bloche, the first deputy of the socialist mayor, as if to put this little scene into perspective and respond to the criticisms of the opposition which, in a press release from the group Changer Paris (Republicans, centrists and independents), denounces “zero ecological impact and the eviction of Parisians for the benefit of tourists”and fears for trade.

In 2019, the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) identified 238 ZTLs in operation in eight European countries. Italy alone concentrated 228, set up in Rome, Genoa, Milan, as well as in other smaller cities which wanted to preserve their ancient centers. In France, Nantes launched the movement in 2012, followed by Grenoble in 2017.

These traffic restriction policies are part of this general movement in Europe to reclaim public space from the place previously given to the car. Behind it is the hope of finding better air quality in the city, a more peaceful, less noisy living environment. To leave more room for pedestrians and bicycles. For the ZTL, which aims to avoid so-called “transit” traffic, those which only pass through, Paris is not the first. But the policies pursued by the left since coming to power in the early 2000s have profoundly transformed the capital. Bertrand Delanoë launched the movement, Anne Hidalgo amplified it (pedestrianization of paths on the bank, deployment of more than a thousand kilometers of cycle paths, development of streets at schools). Not everything goes smoothly. The very recent passage of the ring road to 50 kilometers per hour (km/h) goes in the same direction.

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