"I think it's illegitimate." On Friday, Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher denounced the Paris City Hall's plan to limit the speed on the ring road to 50 km/h from 70 km/h today, after the 2024 Olympic Games. For the elected official, this measure is likely to generate more traffic jams and therefore CO2 emissions.
"You don't take a measure, when you're mayor of Paris, without taking into account all the users of the ring road who are, as if by chance, people who live in the suburbs, who don't have the same means as Parisians, who don't have the same public transport, I find it anti-social, I find it illegitimate," the minister said on Europe 1-CNews.
"I think it's illegitimate... if it's to generate more traffic jams, it's surreal because it generates more CO2. It's ecology on a weekly basis" @AgnesRunacher on the idea of lowering the speed limit on the Paris ring road to 50 km/h#LaGrandeITW #Europe1 pic.twitter.com/Jjk6HBi9BH
— Europe 1 (@Europe1) December 8, 2023
"If it's to generate more traffic jams, it's surreal, because it generates more CO2 emissions, so it's really ecology on a weekly basis," the minister added, going against the arguments used to justify this measure announced at the end of November.
The town hall reiterates its intention
The mayor's office, led by Anne Hidalgo, said at the end of November that it wanted to limit the speed limit on the ring road to 50 km/h after the Olympic Games, from September 2024, in addition to reserving one of the lanes for carpooling. With this measure, the town hall intends to reduce pollution and noise pollution, especially at night for the 500,000 people who live in the immediate vicinity of this axis, often in working-class neighborhoods.
Read alsoNoise, pollution... Passing the Paris ring road at 50 km/h, a measure that will really be effective?
On Thursday, the mayor's office reiterated its intention to implement this measure, despite the government's opposition, expressed by Transport Minister Clément Beaune. The latter, who is expected to be a candidate for mayor of Paris, said that the state "would not validate" at the end of 2024 the 50 km/h limit on the Paris ring road wanted by the Paris city hall after the Olympic Games.
The ring road, one of Europe's main urban thoroughfares, is used every day by 1.2 million vehicles, the majority of which are from the Ile-de-France region, 80% of which are driven by their driver.