This is teeth-grinding news Parisian motorists. The Paris Town Hall is presented Friday, November 17 at the end of the day, a new plan was announced “pedestrian plan”. The goal? Mass pedestrian capital encourage walking. So far nothing negative.

On the other hand, more free lanes for pedestrians necessarily means less space for cars. The impact on Parisian motorists, who have been suffering ever since the mass appearance of bike lanes in 2020can be significant.

But what does the plan, which will cost taxpayers €300 million, include? Transcript.

Hiking is the future! @Paris presents its new pedestrian zone plan!

Task: to improve, secure and expand the practice of walking in the capital. Tip: priority for pedestrians!🚶‍♀️🦯🏃👩‍🦽

Subscribe to the topic 🧶⬇️ pic.twitter.com/1vMcZVZmzc

— David Belliard (@David_Belliard) November 17, 2023

A tweet from David Bellard, deputy mayor of Paris, responsible for the transformation of public space, transport, mobility, street codes and roads.

Make pedestrians en masse and widen the sidewalks

The main measure of this project is to return the streets to Parisians as much as possible. To achieve this, Maria wants to create ” more than 100 hectares of pedestrian zones“, which is equivalent to 121 football fields.

“The goal is to make walking more accessible, safer, and more pleasant“, first deputy mayor of Ann Hidalgo Emmanuel Gregoire explained at the press conference.

By 2026, 100 hectares of the pedestrian zone will look like this:

• pedestrian village 100 new streets near primary and elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, universities or public institutions, and 17 new roads;
• model 50 new “streets for children” with more greenery, fountains, benches and fun markings on the ground;
• realization new pedestrian areasespecially near the Olympic facilities;
• gradually make it pedestrian 12 kilometers with side alleys with boulevards and Paris Avenue;
• create or expand a pedestrian heart in each of the 20 districts of the capital

Confirm pedestrian priority and increase control

But to achieve this, there is no miracle recipe. The increase in space will inevitably come at the expense of traffic. Besides significantly reducing the number of streets accessible to vehicles, the plan doesn’t stop there. City Hall wants to calm traffic between pedestrians and motorized vehicles to combat road accidents.

The plan includes, among other things:

• continue decrease in the number and flow of motor vehicles ;
• implement a Restricted traffic zone in the center of Paris;
• strengthen police operations municipal aimed at combating speeding and failure to give priority to pedestrians;
• equip with radar binoculars and with noise meters municipal police officers to deal with speeding and road noise

To improve security and comfort with pedestrian crossings, involves a planincrease the duration from some pedestrian lightsby calibrating the duration of the green light according to the average walking speed of the elderly (i.e. 0.8 meters/second according to CEREMA).

Several measures against motorists

The City Hall, which has made the reduction of car traffic one of the main directions of its policy, plans other measures aimed directly at cars and two-wheelers in the capital. Here are others:

• Removal 100% parking within a 5 meter lane before and after pedestrian crossings in order to improve common visibility between vehicles moving on the road and pedestrians crossing the road;
• Law on reduction of noise pollution in the city, in particular by reducing the speed to 30 km/h on the roads of Paris where this is not already the case, experimenting with acoustic radars, strengthening road controls for noisy vehicles and working to strengthen noise standards for motorized two-wheelers;
• Fight againstexcessive use of horns and sirens

After passage 30 km/h on a significant part of the capital’s road network, some large axes were preserved, remaining limited to 50 km/h. But the “pedestrian plan” definitely wants to force all Parisian motorists to keep below 30 km/h, which seems difficult to achieve…

To find all the measures of the upcoming plan presented last Friday, go here official page of the city of Paris, which details the whole.