Mayor of Paris promised to make the center of the French capital pedestrian
Paris City Hall is considering closing four central city districts on the right bank of the Seine to automobile traffic. As RFI notes, it is in these districts that the main tourist attractions are concentrated: Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Pompidou Center, the Marais and Les Halles neighborhoods.
Restricting automobile traffic is planned gradually. Initially, the city hall plans to expand the "Paris breathes" program, when automobile traffic is closed on the first Sunday of each month. From 2019, such restrictions will be introduced in the city center every Sunday.
Anne Hidalgo intends to present the project of turning the historic center of Paris into a pedestrian zone as an election program for her second mayoral term, sources at AFP in the city hall say. Municipal elections in Paris will be held in 2020, but Hidalgo has not yet officially announced her candidacy.
Earlier, in 2016, on the initiative of Anne Hidalgo, the Paris City Council voted to close part of the right bank embankment of the Seine to automobile traffic. In 2011, Anne Hidalgo's predecessor as city mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, made the left bank embankments pedestrian.