Who chooses what should become of our cities? A citizen consultation ends today, this Sunday, May 28, in Ile de France to define the future of the Paris ring road. The view of sociologist Jean Viard.
Who decides the future of our cities? How are they going to organize themselves? A citizen consultation ends today, Sunday May 28, in Ile de France, to define the future of the Paris ring road. What will be the maximum speed? Who will have the right to travel on a lane reserved for public transport, taxis, carpooling, etc.? At what times should this route also be open? At the end of January 2024, the mayor of Paris will decide.
franceinfo: Jean Viard, does all this seem like a good method to you?
John Viard: Yes, I find that consulting people is a good idea. Asking them for their opinion doesn’t mean that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Because we are not all specialists in traffic problems, fluidity, accidents, etc. But I think it’s a very good idea. Afterwards, it is normal for it to be up to the politicians to decide in fine what must be done, that seems normal to me. Then, can we discuss the scale? Indeed, does the ring road belong to Parisians or is it in fact a break between Paris and Ile de France?
We have there a world metropolis of 11 million inhabitants which is dispatched, cut up with rich ends, poor ends, ends where one circulates well, ends where one does not circulate. So there is a huge problem thinking about the future of Greater Paris. And then afterwards, we can say to ourselves: what do we do with the device? But first, that we have a common which is a project, to have a fantastic world city, and to give it economic and social coherence.
So who should choose for Paris? We could ask the same question for other large cities, but is it the town hall, is it the region or even the state?
Inevitably, everyone must be consulted. One thing must be said: what is a city? Man was not born in the city, animals were not born in cities. So man invented this extraordinary object which is the city, where there is a density of individuals, creators, teachers, and we collide etc… But we only dream of getting out of it, we only dreams of going out on weekends, during vacations, etc. And then we only dream of coming back.
In Paris, there are 2,000,000 inhabitants, but there are three or four million who enter the city every day. A city only lives when it is open, when you can cross it and get out of it. And so, that poses the problem of his city project, which is very complicated in the current period.
And the question asked in this consultation, which ends today, is in particular that of the legacy of the 2024 Summer Olympics and the Paralympic Games. Because during these Games, it will exist on the ring road, and even on two portions of the Olympic lane motorways, to convey relief, athletes, officials. After all, is there a need to rethink all these bypasses, these peripherals around our cities?
It’s an excellent school effect, where we’re going to do life-size tests that we wouldn’t dare to do in a normal life. So there, it’s a special case, it’s during the summer, so a good part of the Parisians will not be there. But at the same time, we are going to use the city differently. I think it will make the technicians learn a lot of things. It will open up lots of ideas to them that they never had. That doesn’t mean that we should keep everything we’ve done, but it does mean that as we’re building a city, in which we’re developing cycling, non-polluting transport, and in which, in same time, care must be taken that the city does not close.
That’s why I insisted on the fact that there are more people returning than people living there, there is certainly a new way of living in the city. And then this city, we know that it needs to be greened and vegetated so that it captures carbon. We are, one could say, faced with a dress rehearsal of what a city could be, managed differently. And I find that to be very interesting.
And the idea is not to reduce the number of displaced people, but to reduce the number of vehicles used to move them, specifies the town hall of Paris with a view to the transformation of the ring road. Is this one of the major challenges in the transformation of our cities and transport?
This is one of the major issues with the question – because Paris is very well structured by the metro, the trams, etc., for people who are in the city – the question is: how do those who arrive in the city function? It was the same question as for the Yellow Vests: 60% of French people live in houses with gardens, next to towns, in small towns, and so they come to the town to give it wealth, to work , to produce wealth. How do these people make it easy to get into the city? This is what is very complicated.
And it is a subject that interests in any case Parisians and those who live in Ile de France. All who are invited to speak. 90% of the 79,000 voters, during a first consultation in 2021, said they were opposed to the removal of a lane from the ring road. We will see what happens with the results of this consultation. Assessment during the summer with the first choices, the first orientations of the town hall of Paris.