There might be 1,000 car-free streets in Paris soon

Mobility in the City of Lights has altered significantly in recent years. The comfort of pedestrians and other gentler modes of transportation have taken precedence over automobiles in Paris under the leadership of Mayor Anne Hidalgo. Despite the fact that Hidalgo will not run for office in the upcoming elections, one guy in particular wants to honor her legacy and go one step further by making the city’s streets car-free.

The next municipal elections in Paris will take place in 2026. Bets are on who will succeed Hidalgo as mayor now that she has declared she would not run. Emmanuel Grégoire, Hidalgo’s former first deputy, and Rémi Féraud, who has Hidalgo’s support, are two people who are prepared to take over her role.

In their election campaigns, both are obviously emphasizing soft mobility. Féraud has previously declared his intention to expand the so-called Limited Traffic Zone, which currently only covers the city center, to include the whole of Paris. The goal of the strategy is to reduce traffic, but it also aims to reduce pollution, which is still a difficult issue.

However, Grégoire believes those steps won’t be enough and instead wants to see more streets in Paris without cars. By the conclusion of his term, he hopes to have 1,000 of the city’s 6,500 streets car-free roadways. He would set up a different timetable for every Parisian arrondissement in order to achieve that aim, enabling them to handle any future issues separately.

In order to support his concept, Grégroire also posted images on Twitter that contrast a street with cars and one without. In the 20th arrondissement, before and after the Rue du Docteur Paquelin. A parking street was turned into a road with no cars. Recently, an image of this street in its current location became popular, and on Reddit in particular, there was discussion about the image being altered by artificial intelligence because Google Street View is outdated, he said.

Hidalgo has taken significant steps to make Paris greener since taking office. More than 200 streets in the city were made car-free, and she plans to raise this number by 2026. Additionally, some of the banks of the Seine River were pedestrianized. The Limited Traffic Zone, a heavily monitored area with numerous travel limitations, only went into effect this autumn.