The Paris mayor's ambitious (and controversial) plan to make the banks of the Seine more pedestrian-friendly[1] has been approved by the city council, Le Monde reports, and is part of a larger "Paris Breathes" anti-pollution campaign by mayor Anne Hidalgo.
A length of 3.3 kilometers (approximately two miles) running along the Right Bank from the Tuileries gardens to the Henri IV tunnel—an area that is part of a UNESCO world heritage site—will be permanently closed off to vehicles and transformed into a promenade for walking and biking[2]. Traffic, noise, and emissions levels will be monitored on other main thoroughfares as well.
Though the plan has been met with opposition from the right and motorists, 55 percent of Parisians are in support of it. Pollution[3] in the capital city is among the European Union's worst and even sometimes competes with levels in Beijing and China. And according to the Independent[4], medical experts have named air pollution as a contributing factor in 2,500 deaths in the city and 6,600 in the greater metropolitan area each year. Will this measure be enough to make the air safer to breathe?
References
- ^ make the banks of the Seine more pedestrian-friendly (www.curbed.com)
- ^ transformed into a promenade for walking and biking (www.curbed.com)
- ^ Pollution (www.latimes.com)
- ^ Independent (www.independent.co.uk)
