towards a transformation of the ring roads surrounding cities?

The Paris ring road was built from 1956 to 1973, largely along the route of the Thiers fortifications abandoned by the army. But will it last forever?

Anne Hidalgo has decided to lower the speed limit to 50 km/h on the ring road from October 1st, but is this road that we are failing to make more fluid doomed to remain a ring road? Ring roads, bypasses, or “tangentials” are a kind of noisy and filthy urban highways built in the 1960s to relieve congestion in city centers. What is the current status of these structures?

The name ring road comes from military vocabulary, the ring road designating in the 18th century a road built parallel to the front, at the rear, out of reach of the enemy. It is perhaps not entirely by chance that in Paris the ring road was built on the route of old fortifications intended to combat possible external intervention. Because that is what ring roads and ring roads do: keep out of reach of large cities those who do not live there.

On the other hand, in terms of traffic, nowhere in France have these ring roads managed to solve the problem of traffic jams. Parisians, Bordeaux residents and Lyon residents spend an average of five days a year there, at a complete standstill.

So, 50 years after their creation, it is time to take stock and why not reinvent them. For the moment, we see speeds slowing down everywhere. From 110 km/h to 90 km/h in Toulouse, from 90 km/h to 70 km/h in Lyon, soon 50 km/h in Paris. This seems to waste a lot of time, but on average it is only a few minutes difference. And slowing down is perhaps the beginning of transforming these roads in a changing era.