Slower, less loud, less strong. The day after the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, Anne Hidalgo announced on Monday 9 September that the maximum speed on the ring road would be reduced from 70 km/h to 50 km/h from 1Ahem October. “It is a public health measure for the 500,000 people who live around the ring road.” The mayor of Paris had justified this in an interview with the newspaper Western France, on August 31st.
When presenting her wishes in January, the elected socialist had already indicated that the limitation would intervene after the Games. The reduction to 50 km/h is, along with the perpetuation of the lane reserved for carpooling and public transport tested during the Games, one of the measures of the capital’s 2024-2030 climate plan.
The announcement by the mayor of Paris is harshly criticised by the right-wing municipal opposition and by the entourage of the president (Les Républicains) of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, who denounces both a decision “brutal” AND “the absence of impact studies”. It is also contested by the State, which wants to maintain “your opinion”.
A 2019 information mission
The thorny question of the future of this congested 35-kilometre ring road (more than a million vehicles a day), which has encircled Paris since 1973, is not new. A Paris Council information and assessment mission recommended around fifty measures in 2019, including a speed limit of 50 km/h and a dedicated lane to transform this urban road. “multiple source of contamination”, as a simple urban boulevard.
The two main pollutions caused by the “periphery” are noise pollution and emissions of fine particles and nitrogen oxides, which deteriorate air quality. The maximum authorised speed had already been increased from 90 km/h to 80 km/h in 1993 and then to 70 km/h in 2014. Reducing it further is considered by elected officials to be an effective measure to limit both noise and air pollution, two interrelated nuisances, as demonstrated by the first cross-mapping of air quality and ambient noise in Île-de-France, published at the end of May.
Produced by Bruitparif, the noise observatory of the Ile-de-France region, and Airparif, the organisation responsible for monitoring air quality in the region, the maps revealed co-exposure in Paris and neighbouring municipalities. “die-hard” near the boulevard.
An estimated social cost of 43 billion euros
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