Fewer parking spaces in the streets of Paris, a nightmare, really?

In Paris, bars have been authorized to set up tables in parking spaces.

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• The Paris city hall wants to remove half of surface parking spaces within six years.

• This policy should not revolutionize the lives of motorists, given the continued decline in automobile traffic.

• The accessibility and prices of underground car parks will be major issues.

Is parking with your car in Paris going to become really very complicated?

Last week, the city hall of the capital confirmed the elimination of 70,000 surface parking spaces by 2026. A campaign promise from Anne Hidalgo which provoked epidermal reactions among motorists, worried that they could no longer find a location.

The latter have already been scalded by the "Covid" terraces of bars and restaurants which nibble on their space.

In a few years therefore, there will be half the number of spaces for cars in the streets of Paris, with the benefit of new developments (cycle paths, gardens, sports facilities, etc.) which remain to be defined through consultation.

This does not mean, however, that drivers will all be forced to go around in circles, waiting in vain for a place to become available.

Indeed, the vast majority (75 to 80%) of some 812,000 locations identified by the Paris Travel Observatory are not located on the surface, but underground.

These may be public car parks operated by private providers (65,000 spaces), commercial car parks (80,000 spaces), and above all, private car parks located under buildings and normally dedicated to their residents (527,000 spaces).

Prices to review

It is on these three "deposits" of parking - to use the expression of the elected ecologist David Belliard - that the town hall wants to rely to compensate for the removal of places in the streets.

But to convince motorists to go underground, several obstacles will have to be removed.

First, the price.

For those who come to Paris from time to time, underground parking becomes financially attractive compared to the surface area from three or four hours of consecutive parking, depending on the zone (central or peripheral).

On the other hand, as a study by the Atelier parisien d'urbanisme (Apur) published in 2019 notes, the bill is much higher in the case of a subscription.

“The costs of subscriptions in licensed parks (…) remain much higher than those on the road for Parisian residents (…) Parking on the road costs 42.75 euros per month, by integrating a weekly rate and the pro-rated cost of the annual card.

In licensed parks, the price differences are significant depending on the boroughs, and depending on the type of subscription (monthly, number of outings for small riders, etc.).

On average in Paris, subscription costs vary between 136.13 and 161.98 euros per month ”.

In other words, those who used to park in the street and would have to go underground could pay up to 120 euros extra per month.

A financial effort that the mayor of Paris hopes will be less: “Our policy should help increase the occupancy rate [of underground car parks].

In return, I am optimistic that affordable prices will be offered to some of the customers, ”indicated David Belliard in his interview with

.

Where to remove places?

The second obstacle to switching to the underground model is that of development.

While public car parks are generally well equipped (signage, lighting, lifts, cameras, etc.), this is not necessarily the case for car parks owned by condominiums and social landlords, which represent the majority (around 75%) of places in the basement.

"Many private car parks have been neglected and are poorly maintained," recognizes Frédéric Héran, economist and town planner at the University of Lille.

If we want to encourage people to go there, we will have to renovate them ”.

The last obstacle to be overcome is that of localization.

For example, if the supply of underground spaces is abundant in the 18th arrondissement (in the north of Paris) but parking spaces are removed in the 14th (in the south of the capital), motorists who had the habit of parking in the neighborhood will not want to cross the whole city to leave their vehicle there.

To see more clearly, the Apur has carried out a mapping of “surplus” places in the capital.

The calculation is carried out by district, by comparing the number of spaces available (above ground and underground) and the number of cars owned by residents.

According to these works, most of the excess places on the road are located in the eastern, southern and south-eastern districts of the capital.

The map below illustrates the results (the darker the color, the higher the supply of surface spaces compared to demand).

The map of the capital produced by the Apur in 2019 shows the districts (in dark purple) where there are the most excess places on the road.

- Apur study

“If we refer to what was initially planned during the electoral campaign, the Paris municipality is planning to remove parking lots mainly in eastern Paris, where the supply of parking is already greater than demand, which would therefore have fewer negative consequences ”, indicated Charles Gérard, manager of the specialized site Monsieur Parking, in an interview with Les

.

Once the spaces are removed from the streets of a neighborhood, one might expect to see the occupancy rate of the underground car parks in the surrounding areas soar, with operators rubbing their hands.

But that will not necessarily be the case.

A decline that began a long time ago

"We are planning a limited postponement of parking to underground car parks," explains

a spokesperson for Indigo

to

, which manages 96 car parks (totaling 60,000 spaces) in Paris.

Like many other players, the company has observed for several years an erosion of the number of visitors to its works: “Between 2015 and 2019 alone, the drop is 26%.

The difficulties of access to the capital and the reduction in the space allocated to the car partly explain this phenomenon ”notes Indigo.

"This reduction in the place of the car is a major trend that goes beyond political divisions," notes Frédéric Héran.

We must not forget that it was Jacques Chirac himself who inaugurated the policy aimed at reducing vehicle parking with the installation of thousands of posts on the sidewalks in the 1990s. Jean Tiberi took over and started a policy to give more space to the bicycle.

Bertrand Delanoë and Anne Hidalgo continued on this path.

"

According to the Apur, 462,691 vehicles were owned by Parisians in 2015. This is 110,000 less than in 1990, while the population has remained stable.

And the number will drop even further.

According to the projections of the organization, which is based on the current trend since 1990, there will be between 35,000 and 95,000 vehicles less in the capital by 2025. In other words, even if the town hall of Paris removes 70,000 places parking by 2026, at the same time there will be fewer cars in circulation and likely to be looking for a space.

Something to reassure (a little) the motorists of the future.

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