- Municipal stand 15 and 22 March 2020. Every Monday, 20 Minutes addresses a campaign theme. Today, transport and more particularly the Paris ring road.
- Forty-six years after its birth, this road axis frequented by 1.1 million motorists per year, is mainly known for its pollution and for its recurring traffic jams.
- All the candidates position themselves on its future a few weeks before the first round of the municipal elections.
- Destroy it? Transform it? Preserve it? That is the question.
It was one of the last themes of the Paris Council, before the municipal elections. Last December, the Parisian executive communicated on the future of the peripheral boulevard and drew up a first assessment of the consultation on the subject. A stage point. Last June, the forty recommendations of an information and evaluation mission on the periphery were unanimous at the Paris Council. They proposed to respond to the health emergency, in particular by lowering the speed to 50 km / h, to appease car traffic by developing alternative transport by 2040 before tackling the redevelopment of the space occupied by the device itself. And for good reason.
Forty-six years after its birth, this road axis frequented by 1.1 million motorists per year, is mainly known for its pollution and for its recurring traffic jams. A few weeks before the first round of the municipal elections, this sea serpent of Parisian political life is therefore naturally found in the mouth of all the candidates for mayor of Paris. Environmental, urban, social issue, the ring road is a major theme. But who offers what? 20 Minutes provides an overview.
"I have no plans to delete the device"
He had his flagship measure. Gaspard Gantzer, former candidate on behalf of the Parisiennes movement, Parisiens, and who joined Agnès Buzyn (LREM), wanted to remove the device. “We must delete, destroy the ring road and give Paris the size that this metropolis needs. We need air, ”he explained to 20 Minutes. And to clarify: “Today, it's been almost 150 years that the borders of Paris have not changed. It is time to do it because the ring road is an urban, architectural anomaly and it is awfully ugly. It is a great source of pollution and it cuts Paris from its suburbs. It is only in Paris that there is a circular bar five kilometers from the center of the city ”. But his idea did not follow with his new commitment to the candidate LREM. "I have no plans to remove the device," Agnès Buzyn told 20 Minutes in a recent interview. “On the other hand, I think that bridges or places of passage are entirely possible with neighboring municipalities […] but no major works. I think that Parisians today are exhausted from major projects, "she added to AFP.
A 35 km long ribbon enclosing the capital, the ring road was inaugurated with great pomp on April 25, 1973 by Prime Minister Pierre Messmer after 15 years of work on the site of the old fortifications of Paris. For outgoing mayor Anne Hidalgo, the ring road will eventually have to be transformed into an urban boulevard. "This means, decrease in speed, planting on a good twenty hectares, you can plant between 70,000 and 80,000 trees," said deputy mayor Jean-Louis Missika. "It also means in some places traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and, where there are four lanes, one lane reserved for clean vehicles, carpooling and public transport by 2023 and another for pedestrians and bikes, ”he says.
Already in 2014, Anne Hidalgo also promised "a plan to beautify all the major Parisian places" and "concrete actions" so that "tomorrow, innovative projects will erase this border that is the device." What about the other candidates?
"Transform the device"
"We are also in the process of transforming the ring road into a green urban boulevard," explains the ecologist Fatoumata Koné, who nevertheless wants residents to be consulted on this subject. For EELV, the space gained on the periphery should above all meet local needs in terms of housing, sports or cultural infrastructure.
For Cédric Villani (ex-LREM) defender of an enlarged Paris, he calls to "erase the device as a physical, administrative and psychological barrier". It is necessary, he says, "to suture, to cover where it is possible, to build bridges and to encourage soft movements". Danielle Simonnet (supported by LFI) wants to “continue covering the ring road where possible and create green spaces”.
Our 2020 Municipal File
For its part Rachida Dati does not want to touch the peripheral because it plays a major role in allowing the drainage of automobile flows. "It makes no sense to consider its removal. On the other hand, we will think about experimenting with a reserved lane for express shuttles, carpooling, taxis and clean vehicles, ”she said in her program.
Marcel Campion takes the opposite view from all the other candidates and proposes to double it. "We are making a double ring road, below the current one for mobility around Paris, and we are greening the surfaces above", he explained to 20 Minutes last December.
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- Paris
- Rachida Dati
- Anne Hidalgo
- Elections
- Agnes Buzyn
- Paris town hall
- Outlying street