Hidalgo pushes on: 50 km/h on Paris Ring Road from October 1st

From October 1st, only 50 km/hour may be driven on the Paris Ring Road. The news was already announced last year, but Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has officially confirmed the speed limit.

Remarkably, for the measure intended to reduce pollution for more than half a million inhabitants, Hidalgo is not awaiting the advice of the French state, which, according to mainly right-wing political opponents, she should do.

Hidalgo out of line?

Socialist Mayor Hidalgo had already announced in November that the day after the Games, which ended on Sunday, she would sign the decree lowering the speed on the 35 km Ring Road that surrounds the capital to 50 km/h compared to 70 km/h now.

However, opponents say the speed limit is managed by the highway code and can only be changed by government decree. If the city wants to lower the speed limit for safety or environmental protection, it must do so under state supervision.

Also, according to the Paris Police Prefecture, introducing such a measure requires the expertise of the state departments responsible for the national road network in the Paris region and consultation with neighboring public authorities to implement it.

After all, lowering the speed limit on this axis, which is used by more than a million vehicles daily, could have significant consequences in terms of travel time for users and increase traffic difficulties throughout the Paris region.

Grotesque situation threatens

Not everyone is happy with the measure that Hidalgo wants to introduce on her own, although, according to France Info, she can introduce it without the state’s green light.

“Since 2017, the city of Paris has had the prerogatives regarding, in particular, the setting of speeds on the Ring Road,” confirmed a lawyer specializing in road law. “By virtue of the legal principle, it has this power and authority.”

In theory, Hidalgo can set the speed of the Ring Road at whatever she wants, but the French state manages the automatic speed cameras. In other words, the state could keep the speed cameras at 70 km/h.

It also remains to be seen what the position of the Paris police prefect will be. After all, the latter has veto power over another of Hidalgo’s wishes: transforming the lane reserved for Olympic vehicles into a lane dedicated exclusively to carpooling.

‘Antisocial measure’

According to the former Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the measure will likely increase traffic jams and thus CO2 emissions. In turn, the president of the Îe-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, calls it an antisocial measure because, according to her, frontline workers are penalized early in the morning or late at night while 40% of the trips on the boulevard go from suburb to suburb, so most of the users of the Ring Road do not live in Paris.

Therefore, she will submit a motion to the regional council asking the city of Paris to abandon the project. Instead, she wants soundproof asphalt, which she says is more effective in reducing noise pollution.

Right versus left, again

“Soundproofing coatings are a concept from another age, which consists in saying ‘don’t touch the car,” said Patrick Bloche, first deputy mayor of Paris. “What is punitive is to make the 550,000 people living in the 500-meter strip on either side of the boulevard, 40% of whom live in social housing, suffer noise and air pollution levels that exceed WHO standards.”

In 2014, the speed on the Paris Ring Road was reduced by 10 km/h, from 80 km/h to 70 km/h. Since then, residents of the urban highway have experienced a reduction in noise pollution, especially at night: down just over a decibel at night and 0.5 decibels during the day.

Today, the average speed on the ring road is 50 km/h during the day, 30 to 45 km/h during rush hour, and 60 km/h at night.