Paris imposes car-sharing lane on congested ring road 04/03/2025

The scheme was tested during the Paris Olympics (JULIEN DE ROSA) (JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP/AFP)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Paris imposes car-sharing lane on congested ring road

Hélène Duvigneau

On Monday, Paris began limiting a lane of its notoriously busy ring road to car-sharing during peak hours, the French capital's latest measure to ease congestion and pollution on one of Europe's most congested thoroughfares.

The car-sharing lane was used during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the plan is defended by the Socialist-led city council, but criticized by the right.

The peripheral ring road, known throughout Paris with a mixture of dread and familiarity as the “perish”, is now reserving its leftmost traffic lane - the fastest - during rush hour for vehicles carrying “at least two passengers”.

This excludes heavy goods vehicles but includes all public transport, cabs, emergency vehicles, and people with reduced mobility.

In October, the city authorities reduced the speed limit on the entire ring road to 50 km/h (30 mph), from 70 km/h (44 mph).

“We want to reduce the number of cars on the road by optimizing the number of passengers to reduce noise and air pollution,” David Belliard, the deputy mayor responsible for transport, told AFP, stressing that 80% of the ring road's users are individual drivers.

“The ring road is the busiest urban highway in Europe and it's a real health scandal. The half a million inhabitants who live on both sides of this urban highway are exposed to pollution levels that are still too high, with 30% more asthma among children,” added Dan Lert, deputy mayor responsible for environmental issues.

The lane is marked by white diamond signs on a blue background, which are lit from Monday to Friday, from 7 am to 10.30 am and from 4 pm to 8 pm. Police headquarters can deactivate it in the event of major traffic jams.

- 'Most polluted area'

Seven kilometers (4.3 miles) of the 35-kilometer (22-mile) “perish” in the south of Paris are currently exempt from the measure, but the city is investing another seven million euros in equipment to bring the area into the scheme.

Drivers who break the new rules will be detected using artificial intelligence and will see a message displayed on signs asking them to change lanes.

The first fines, worth 135 euros, will be levied from May 1, with the police responsible for analyzing the images before applying the penalty.

With around 1.5 million journeys a day, the ring road is “the most polluted area in the capital”, according to the town hall.

But there was concern about the scheme, with the right-wing leader of the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris and surrounding areas, writing to Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo to express fears about possible mass traffic jams.

“We must be able to stop this experiment, which is being implemented in such a non-consensual way if the results are negative,” said Valerie Pecresse, demanding an ‘exhaustive’ evaluation within three months of the impact.

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