This article is part of our “Les focuses de franceinfo” operation, which highlights key topics that are little covered in the presidential campaign: the cost of housing, the public hospital crisis, the taboo of mental health and the carbon footprint of transport.
With 48,000 premature deaths per year attributed to pollution, the issue of private car traffic in urban areas is a public health issue that regularly comes to the forefront of concerns, as scientists sound the alarm. But politicians remain cautious on the issue. The 2022 presidential candidates even almost all ignore the subject. However, under European pressure, legislation has evolved in France in recent years, allowing the State and local authorities to implement road traffic regulation systems based on systems implemented abroad. ZAPA (priority air action zones), ZCR (restricted traffic zone), ZFE (low emission zone), ZTL (high traffic zone) limit)… If the acronyms are multiplying to designate urban areas where we intend to limit or even eliminate private cars, emitting greenhouse gases, you will not find them in the programs of presidential candidates.
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When Emmanuel Macron in 2017 promised to halve the number of days of air pollution, the question simply disappeared from his 2022 program. On the far right, both for Marine Le Pen and for Éric Zemmour, the commitment is clearly expressed to abolish the EPZs, these “lawless areas”. Not better on the far left: Fabien Roussel like Jean-Luc Mélenchon consider them as a factor of social discrimination. On the right, it is feared that the “yellow vests” will ignite. Valérie Pécresse therefore proposes to postpone their deployment until after 2025. Known for her determination to ban cars from the streets of Paris, the socialist Anne Hidalgo has continued to take measures to reduce automobile traffic in Paris since her election in 2014. cycle lanes, closure of the Georges-Pompidou lane, etc. It again recently decided to tighten the rules by promising limited traffic zones by 2024. But ultimately, only the ecologist Yannick Jadot clearly states in his program his intention to support the deployment of ZFE throughout the territory.
ZFEs (low emission zones) aim to prevent the most polluting vehicles from circulating in the event of pollution peaks. The ZTL (zone with traffic limit)very rare in France (there are only two, one in Nantes since 2012, the other in Grenoble since 2017), are intended to limit the circulation of motorized vehicles permanently with the aim also of decongesting town centres, to limit noise pollution and to make space available to pedestrians and cyclists.
But renouncing the use of his personal car is indeed difficult, especially for commuters in large cities who show significant increases in their travel times with an insufficient public transport network. Some even see it as an obstacle to the freedom to come and go. Is this the reason why the candidates for the presidential election do not mention it when ecology is at the heart of current challenges and eight out of ten French people say they are “worried” about the environment and climate change, according to a poll published on March 3? This is not about hampering the freedom of movement but about questioning the place of the car in transport, in order to fight, first and foremost, against pollution.
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In France, it was necessary to wait for European justice condemns the French state for his inaction and that the Council of State orders for see a really concrete reaction. The mobility orientation law published in Official newspaper in December 2019 focuses on ZFEs, which are based on the Crit’Air sticker system introduced since July 2016. The establishment of a ZFE falls within the competence of local authorities. Its implementation is mandatory for cities that regularly exceed air quality standards. This concerns the Paris conurbation (40 municipalities including Paris), the Metropolis of Grenoble (27 municipalities including Grenoble), the Metropolis of Lyon and since 2021, the metropolises of Aix-Marseille-Provence, Nice-Côte d’Azur, Toulon -Provence-Méditerranée, Toulouse, Montpellier-Méditerranée, Strasbourg and Rouen-Normandy. By December 31, 2024, the climate and resilience law provides for the establishment of ZFEs in all metropolitan areas with more than 150,000 inhabitants (35 additional ZFEs).
Some recent and very local initiatives are timidly trying to reverse the trend with ZTLs (limited traffic zones). The acronym that appeared in France as part of the 2017 National Mobility Conference is a term that city dwellers will, it seems, have to become familiar with. Paris announced in mid-February that it would put one in place by 2024, called a “peaceful zone”. It is not a strictly pedestrian area but a limited traffic area, that is to say that only a few motorized vehicles will be accepted there, subject to conditions. The sector concerned will include the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th arrondissements and the part of the left bank located north of Boulevard Saint-Germain (5th, 6th and 7th). Transit traffic will be prohibited. Only public transport, pedestrians and cyclists will be freely allowed to circulate there, such as taxis and VTC. Only motorists or two-wheelers justifying a permanent or occasional derogation can enter it.
Rennes, for its part, will test a ZTL from July to mid-October in its historic city center. And the municipality is already announcing modifications without possible reversal from September. Faced with environmental challenges, “we have no choice: we must act now”, she justifies. The idea is that vehicles wishing to cross the city will have to bypass the center, including the 600 buses which will no longer pass through the ZTL but on the edge. The city will just authorize a free electric shuttle, intended primarily for the elderly and people with reduced mobility, which will be deployed before the end of the year. A certain number of vehicles will still be able to enter the ZTL: local residents, health and safety services, taxis, craftsmen, delivery people, hotel customers with reservations, etc. But some will have to justify their presence under penalty of being fined.
If no quantitative assessment of the impact of ZTLs on air quality or other environmental factors could be found, noted Ademe in 2019, the confinement decreed due to the Covid-19 epidemic in March 2020 gives some answers. Between January and April 2020, France saw its CO2 emissions decrease by 7% over this period. And, the National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Risks (Ineris), which has carried out simulations, estimates that NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) pollution has been reduced by 50% on average in 100 of the largest cities. French. In Paris and the Île-de-France region, where road traffic has fallen by nearly 80%, the air quality monitoring agency AirParif has recorded “an improvement in air quality of around 20 to 30%”. It should be noted that since the establishment of a ZTL in 2012 in Nantes, traffic has been divided by three in the area, going from 15,000 vehicles per day to 5,000.
The concept of ZTL is however not new. Italy began to develop them in the 1970s. Its first objective was to protect the heritage of its cities of art from pollution. ZTLs have thus been set up in Ferrara, Florence and Siena. A massive deployment followed after 1995 with the installation of electronic gates to control access and camera controls were added in the 2000s. the road and then completed. Two years after their implementation in May 2004, there were an average of 100 to 150 unauthorized crossings per day in Turin, which was equivalent to revenue of the order of 4 million euros per year. With the increase from 9 to 37 gantries, these revenues rose to some 20 million euros. The system has even evolved into an urban toll in Milan. The ZTL comes under the powers of the mayor but is quite similar in the different Italian cities. It is generally in operation all year round, sometimes only during certain time slots.
In 2019, Italy alone had 228 ZTLs out of the 238 listed by Ademe (Ecological Transition Agency) in eight countries: Italy, Belgium (1), Austria (1), Spain (3), Latvia ( 1), Czech Republic (1), Slovenia (1) and only two in France. And how many at the end of the next five-year term?