Socialist Mayor of Paris, Anne Hildago, has won another 6-year term of office, promising to deliver 15-minute neighbourhoods, improve walking and cycling, and to remove on-street parking.
Under her plans Paris will remove 72% of its on-street car parking spaces. According to a 2019 study by Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme (Apur) there are 83,500 on-street parking spaces in Paris — Hidalgo plans to remove 60,000 of them. There are 621,600 parking spaces in total in Paris, most of them are domestic ones or commercial car parks.
Carlton Reid writing for Forbes
Anne Hidalgo was reelected as Mayor of Paris on Sunday June 28 with an increased majority proving that car-taming candidates can gain and then hold on to power. She polled just under half the votes cast in the French capital and, although she was the Socialist candidate, her victory should be seen in the wider picture of Green wins across France.
Carlton Reid writing for Forbes
The Greens have won Mayoral positions in a range of cities across France, including Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg. Typically, Greens policies include support for walking, cycling, public transport and place making.
In New Zealand, the Labour Party has their Innovating Streets funding program:
Around the world, spaceforhealth.org is reporting on government programs to reallocate space to walking and cycling:
This indicates support from parties across the political spectrum, including from the Conservative Party in the UK.
Residents in the City of Yarra will elect new Councillors in October, most likely returning a mix of Labor, Greens, Socialists and Independents. Let’s hope that support for walking, cycling and place making moves forward with support of all parties and independents, reflecting the broad support in our community.
Published 3rd July 2020.