The PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo wants to make the ring road a “green belt” of the capital, promising to revegetate 10 hectares and plant 70,000 trees by reducing the number of traffic lanes, she announced Wednesday during a press conference.

The “Olympic lane”, reserved for participants in the 2024 Olympic Games (athletes, officials, emergency services), will then be reserved for buses, taxis and carpooling, said his assistant (EELV) for mobility David Belliard, for whom these two measures will make it possible to take 80,000 vehicles off the road.

The ring road now most often has 4 lanes per direction of traffic. “Our objective is 2 times 3 lanes on the entire infrastructure”, announced Mr. Belliard.

The 35 km circular ring, which will celebrate its half-century in 2023, is a “grey belt that we would like to see transformed into a green belt” by 2030, said the former PS presidential candidate, which wants to offer the 500,000 inhabitants living on either side of this fast axis a “more harmonious, more pleasant living environment”.

To carry out this project, Ms. Hidalgo, whose first municipal mandate had been marked by a long political and judicial fight to transform the roads on the banks of the right bank into a pedestrian promenade, intends to carry out “all legal consultations” and promises ” to listen” to motorists, but also to “truck drivers, traders”.

The horizon of 2030, after the end of his second term (2026), must allow “people to be able to adapt” to this change, she said.

It should face radical opposition on this issue from the right-wing president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse, who in 2021 asked the State to reconsider this municipal infrastructure as a regional infrastructure and asked “for impact studies” before the town hall launches its projects.

Another former presidential candidate, Ms. Pécresse had organized an online consultation in which 90% of voters opposed the “removal” of a lane on the ring road.

On the ring road, 40% of journeys are from suburb to suburb and 80% of users are non-Parisians, depending on the region.

05/18/2022 15:28:15 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2022 AFP