Le Figaro Lyon
On June 26, the elected representatives of the metropolis of Lyon will vote on the second stage of the project to amplify the low emission zone (ZFE) in Lyon. A document in which the Lyon ecologist executive decided to extend the current perimeter of the ZFE. The latter concerns for the moment all the districts of Lyon, Caluire-et-Cuire and the sectors of Villeurbanne, Bron and Vénissieux located inside the boulevard Laurent Bonnevay. If the text is voted on 1 January 2024, at the same time as the ban on Crit'Air 4 vehicles, the perimeter will be extended to the M6/M7 lanes, i.e. the former A6/A7 motorway which crosses Lyon from north to south via the tunnel under Fourvière, but also to the Laurent-Bonnevay ring road and the northern ring road.
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A major change in the service of the center of Lyon which nevertheless appears to be a logical consequence of the downgrading, at the end of 2016, of the A6/A7 to an urban boulevard. Decommissioning thought at the time to divert the traffic that crosses Lyon to the bypasses of the East, but also the West of the agglomeration, with the project, now buried, of Ring of Science. As a reminder, Crit'Air 5 and unclassified vehicles are already prohibited in the Lyon ZFE. Crit'Air 4 vehicles will be on January 1, 2024 and Crit'Air 3 vehicles on January 1, 2025. It will be necessary to wait until January 1, 2028 for the Crit'Air 2, that is to say all vehicles running on diesel, to be concerned.
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Heated debates to come
Questioned by Le Figaro in the middle of the week on the subject, Bruno Bernard, the EELV president of the metropolis of Lyon explained that he had taken this decision "because it is complicated to say "you can no longer take your car" to the inhabitants living in the perimeter and not to those who pass occasionally". As a reminder, the so-called transit traffic under the Fourvière tunnel represents only 8% of the total traffic of about 115,000 vehicles per day.
Not yet voted, this decision is already attracting the wrath of the opposition. "This would force the most polluting vehicles to bypass the city of Lyon by the east of Lyon It is a scandal. Why would the health of Lyonnais be to the detriment of the inhabitants of the east of the metropolis?" denounced Laurence Fautra, the LR mayor of Décines, a town precisely located in the east of the metropolis of Lyon. And to add: "This decision was taken without any consultation of the mayors and inhabitants of eastern Lyon. The popes of participatory democracy select topics according to their interest."
It remains to be seen how the majority of the ecologist executive will react to this enlargement, the very principle of ZFE not being unanimous among the communists and the rebellious France. The debates are already expected to be heated.
