The new sign was hidden under a large dark cover. At five in the afternoon this Monday, November 4, in the Place de la Bastille, at the entrance to Rue Saint-Antoine, the artery that leads to the center of Paris, a man dressed in a fluorescent orange vest and shoes security, he ascended The four steps of a shiny ladder revealed 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 entrance to the limited traffic zone (ZTL). And the entry into force, on Tuesday, November 5, of this device, unprecedented in Paris, but widely tested elsewhere, which prohibits the circulation of any motorized vehicle that does not have a good reason to circulate within this famous perimeter.
“It is the first ZTL in Paris, but not the first in France or 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, socialist mayor of Paris Center, at the foot of the stairs, along with three deputies from Anne Hidalgo. In the process a hundred more signs would appear on the landscape, all planted on the limit of 1Ahem2my3my and 4my districts. In addition to the first model, which indicates the entry into the area –Central Paris, with the exception of the Île Saint-Louis and the Île de la Cité–, another warns motorists and bikers of the imminent arrival of this, the third of its launch.
Reconquest of public space
“There is nothing revolutionary about these posters, we see them everywhere in Italy.” Patrick Bloche, first deputy of the socialist mayor, slipped in as if to put this small scene in perspective and respond to criticism from the opposition who, in a statement from the Changer Paris group (republicans, centrists and independents), denounce “Zero ecological impact and eviction of Parisians for the benefit of tourists”and fears about trade.
In 2019, the Agency for Environment and Energy Management (Ademe) identified 238 ZTL in operation in eight European countries. Italy alone concentrated 228, established in Rome, Genoa, Milan, as well as in other smaller cities that 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 recover public space from the place that was previously given to the car. Behind it is the hope of finding better air quality in the city, a quieter and less noisy living environment. Leave more space for pedestrians and bicycles. For the ZTL, which aims to avoid so-called “transit” traffic, those that 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 expanded it (pedestrianization of roads on the shore, deployment of more than a thousand kilometers of bicycle lanes, street planning in schools). Not everything is going well. The recent move of the ring road to 50 kilometers per hour (km/h) goes in the same direction.
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