The periphery at 50 km / h?
Especially not, answer its users.
This is the main lesson of a study carried out by the town hall of Paris.
Motorists driving on the Paris ring road are in fact overwhelmingly hostile to the changes - lowering speed, removing lanes, etc. - envisaged by the City of Paris on the ring road.
The implementation of these changes will require "strong accompanying measures", according to the study.
The ring road, an urban motorway circling Paris, is above all perceived as "the most direct line and above all the best controlled", note the authors of this study dated January 29, which AFP was able to consult.
"Immediate and brutal rejection"
The prospect of lowering the speed from 70 to 50 km / h elicits "an immediate brutal rejection" from those questioned, who are not convinced about the expected benefits in terms of lower air pollution, noise pollution and accidentology.
The establishment of a lane reserved for clean vehicles is the subject of a “very majority rejection”, because it is perceived as socially discriminating or does not meet the constraints of professionals, craftsmen and delivery people.
A lane for buses and emergency vehicles would be better, possibly also for those who carpool three or four people per vehicle.
Consensus against reducing the number of lanes
Likewise, there is consensus against reducing the number of lanes from four or five to three per direction of travel, regardless of the use that would be made of the reclaimed space.
Finally, the people questioned are not very sensitive to the problems of pollution, noise and aesthetics of the ring road, which is a municipal road in Paris.
"In general, the central place that the ring road occupies today in the daily lives of its current users makes it very sensitive to any measure aimed at modifying its configuration", write the authors of the study.
"Reduce the negative effects"
"But this situation is also, in a certain sense, synonymous with opportunity since it gives it a potentially very powerful leverage role to encourage changes", they continue.
"For the public authorities, the delicate exercise will therefore consist in seizing this important opportunity while aiming, through strong support measures, to reduce any negative effects on the daily lives of users", they conclude.
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The investigators questioned 4,000 users of the ring road whose numbers they had taken at 16 doors between September 21 and October 26, 2020, which excludes people in transit.
The sample includes 52% of users for professional reasons and 18% of delivery people.