Paris: speed limited to 30 km / h from August 30

From the end of August, all streets in Paris will be limited to 30 km / h, in order to reduce pollution and noise.

It’s a measure we’ve been hearing about for a while now, but we didn’t think we would see it happen so quickly. However, it is now confirmed: from next August 30, all the streets of Paris will be limited to 30 km/h, against 50 previously, as in all urban areas. A decision now confirmed and announced to Agence France-Presse by Anne Hidalgo and her deputy for Transport and Roads, the elected EELV David Belliard. This measure, already highly contested, is in fact not a surprise, since it had already been promised by the mayor of Paris during his re-election campaign. David Belliard made a point of recalling this, affirming that “ it was one of my campaign commitments with EELV then in our agreements with Anne Hidalgo. We are therefore keeping our campaign promise after a consultation last fall and a report back in the spring ”.

As he therefore points out, “ in Paris, on August 30, it’s 30 km / h “. And there is no question of deviating from this rule, which is already much criticized but fully assumed by the City of Paris: “ The challenge is to reduce the space of the car, which involves reducing the speed “. This is very clear on the intention of Anne Hidalgo, who ultimately wants to ban private vehicles from the capital, while the hunt has continued to intensify for a few years. However, the city council also justifies this measure by a desire to “secure” the streets of the city “for the most vulnerable: pedestrians, cyclists, children and seniors”. The aim is also to reduce noise pollution, as David Belliard emphasizes: “ We reduce noise pollution, we make traffic more fluid by reducing the effects of acceleration and deceleration “. But if this measure is already cringe the associations, it should however be remembered that the average speed in the capital does not currently exceed 14 km / h … Suffice to say that this should not change much in the facts.

All of Paris … or almost

Until then, 60% of Paris within the walls was already limited to 30 km / h, a figure which will therefore increase to 100% from next August 30. Or almost, because some areas will keep their original speed limit. This is particularly the case for the Champs-Elysées, avenues Foch and the Grande Armée, as well as the quays of the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes. For its part, the ring road remains at 70 km / h for the moment, despite Anne Hidalgo’s desire to lower the speed to 50 km / h. A measure that ultimately does not hurry that much, while David Belliard says that ” it was not on the agenda for the moment “. Anyway, Paris is not the first city to move to 30 km / h, since it is following in the footsteps of Toulouse, Nantes or even Grenoble, which have already adopted this measure for some time.