Announced by Anne Hidalgo and David Belliard during the last municipal campaign, and validated this week in our columns, the project to make the center of Paris almost pedestrian in 2022 is causing a stir among the mayors of the neighboring districts ... who are all opponents of the mayor (PS) of the capital. While a consultation on this subject is engaged since Wednesday, these elected officials castigate the policy of "forceful passage" of the City and denounce "the risk of asphyxiation" on the outskirts of the future limited traffic zone which will extend from Paris-Center (formerly 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th arrondissements) to the north of boulevard Saint-Germain.
Nelly Garnier, councilor of Paris (LR) and close to Rachida Dati, the mayor of the seventh, castigates "a plan that is not based on any impact study.
Once again, the traffic measures are taken on the basis of an ideological bias, without referring to a global pattern of movements on the scale of Greater Paris ”.
The elected representative denounces a policy of segregation aimed at making the center of Paris "a reserve of Indians to reinforce what Anne Hidalgo considers her electoral clientele.
It is the peripheral areas - those in the East which do not vote and those in the West which do not vote well - which are being sacrificed.
And the inhabitants of the center will find themselves bunkerized.
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The risk "of emptying the center of its inhabitants and its shops"
The elected representative also denounces "a cynical vision".
In the long term, this device risks, according to her, “of emptying the center of Paris of its inhabitants and its businesses as we have seen with the closure to traffic of the rue de Rivoli.
The risk is that Paris will become a ghost town.
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Delphine Bürkli, the mayor (DVD) of the IXth, does not mince words either.
"I fear that the battle for the image will win out once again over reflection", criticizes the co-president of the LREM group at the Paris Council who regrets having discovered this project to create a limited traffic zone in the press.
“It risks causing massive traffic jams on the edge of the area for months. Rather than rushing, I would like the City to have very detailed studies of flows to measure the impact of the measure and control traffic delays, ”claims the borough mayor, who fears that this project will hamper bus lines, in particular the 20 and also the 32 and 39. Rather than creating a "giant pedestrian zone in the heart of Paris", Delphine Bürkli is in favor of "the creation of tailor-made small shared areas on the 'example of the rue des Martyrs' which she pedestrianized under her previous term of office.
If he is not hostile to this project to create a limited traffic zone, Jean-Pierre Lecoq, the mayor (LR) of the 6th district, also regrets “the lack of a global vision. The City continues to pile up measures without a traffic plan at the level of Paris and the Metropolis. There was the closure of the lanes on the bank and, more recently, the ban on traffic in the rue de Rivoli. Now the pedestrianization of the center… ”He is also worried about“ traffic delays ”and wonders about the movements of“ friends who come to dine in the evening with Parisians living in the area concerned ”.
