The Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo has announced a new citywide speed limit of 50 km/h, effective from 1 October. The decree affects the 35-kilometer motorway that surrounds the French capital.
Hidalgo said that the reduced speed limit was "not a fresh issue" but had been "planned this for over 18 years". She had previously committed to implementing the measure after the Olympics and Paralympics.
Earlier this year, the former Transport Minister Clément Beaune asserted that the State would “not validate” the change and former minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher criticised the measure as being “anti-social”, likely to cause more traffic jams and contribute to CO2 emissions.
But Green Party MP for Paris David Belliard defended the speed reduction as a “common good measure of collective interest”.
Le 1er octobre, nous passerons le périphérique à 50kl/h. Cette décision sera rendue effective par la Maire de Paris, comme nous l'avions annoncé ! Pour protéger la santé de celles et de ceux qui vivent à côté du periph', et pour véritablement transformer cette autoroute qui… pic.twitter.com/zkzO0TDtCq
— David Belliard (@David_Belliard) September 9, 2024
In 2014 the péripherique speed limit was lowered from 80 km/h to 70 km/h, a move that reduced noise pollution for the roughly 550,000 residents living near the urban motorway.
However, five right-wing Parisian legislators questioned the basis of the reduction in speed, co-authoring an op-ed in which they said "the shift from 90 to 70 km/h is highly debatable in terms of both NO2 pollution and noise levels".
