The Mayor of Paris has used her first major interview since her re-election in the summer to warn people in the city to “forget crossing Paris by car”.
Anne Hidalgo told Le Parisien that, “The city needs to evolve.”
Forbes adds that she intends to create permanent curb-protected cycleways and expand the number of lockdown cycleways, known in French as “coronapistes.” Paris created 45 kilometers of coronapistes during lockdown, and now a further 10 kilometres of separated cycleways will be added.
There will also be restrictions on petrol-powered motoring along the Seine.
As part of her reelection campaign, Hidalgo said she wanted to carry out an “ecological transformation of the city,” aiming to clean the city’s air and improve the “daily life of Parisians” by instigating a “city of fifteen minutes.”
Forbes adds that there is opposition to the plans. Pierre Chasseray, leader of 40 Millions d’Automobilistes, a group with a claimed 320,000 members and which lobbies against speed cameras and other “anti-motoring” initiatives, said the the Mayor “is wrong to take advantage of the health crisis to accentuate its anti-car policy.”
