Paris residents to vote on making 500 more streets pedestrian

Parisians vote in a referendum on Sunday to decide whether an extra 500 of the city's streets should be pedestrianised and greened, in a new push by the French capital's left-leaning town hall to curb car usage and improve air quality.

This is the third such referendum in Paris in as many years, following a 2023 vote that approved a ban on e-scooters, and a decision last year to triple parking charges for large SUVs.

"For the past 25 years we've gradually been reclaiming public space for pedestrian traffic, for gentle traffic, and with 'garden streets', to create lungs within neighbourhoods, the places where we live," Deputy Mayor Patrick Bloche told Reuters ahead of Sunday's vote.

Paris town hall data shows car traffic in the city has more than halved since the Socialists assumed power at the turn of the century.

Mayor Anne-Hidalgo, in office since 2014, has overseen significant transformation in the city's streets. Since 2020, 84 km of cycle lanes have been created and bicycle usage jumped 71 per cent between the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns and 2023, the data shows.

If approved, Sunday's referendum will eliminate 10,000 extra parking spots in Paris, adding to the 10,000 removed since 2020. The capital's two million residents will be consulted on which streets will become pedestrian areas.

Paris bottom of list of Europe's greenest capitals

Despite recent changes, Paris lags other European capitals in terms of green infrastructure - which include private gardens, parks, tree-lined streets, water and wetlands - making up only 26 per cent of the city area versus a European capitals average of 41 per cent, according to the European Environment Agency.

Critics of the changes say the town hall's measures make it increasingly challenging for the 10 million people living in the outer suburbs, where the public transport network is less dense, to commute to work and shop in the city centre.

"It's important to know that the city of Paris isn't a museum. It's still a city where people work, where workers are forced to get around, where people from the greater Paris region are forced to come, where there are stores," said Philippe Noziere, head of the automobile owners' association 40M.

Car ownership illustrates the divide between central Paris and the suburbs: only one out of three households own a car in the former versus two out of three in the latter. Excluding Paris and its region, car ownership in France is 85 per cent.

If Parisians vote in favour of the proposal, the 500 streets to be vegetated will bring the total of these "green lungs" to nearly 700, just over one-tenth of the capital's streets.