Felicity Long
Ah Paris, the city of lights, fine dining and -- smog?
Such was the case in March 2014, when the beauty of this elegant city was shrouded by smog to the extent that some Parisians, especially the elderly and asthmatics, suffered respiratory ailments as a result.
The crisis only lasted a few days, but it happened to coincide with my annual visit to the city with my family, and it was interesting to hear locals, normally fiercely proud of their city, gripe.
At one point, you could barely even make out the Eiffel Tower, and just about everyone we met expressed concern about the smog.
“After all, this isn’t Beijing,” sniffed the driver who picked us up from the airport. The hotel concierge concurred on our arrival, gesturing in dismay at the sky.
The powers that be sprang into action to alleviate the problem by enacting alternate-day driving bans, dropping the speed limit in the city, levying fines against scofflaws and even making the metro, bike rentals and electric cars temporarily free.
The measures worked and after a few days the city returned to its habitual glory and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Of course, Paris isn’t the only European city to combat pollution in recent years. Rome has been enacting driving and parking bans in the Fascia Verde for years to alleviate pollution, and this March a cloud of smog drifted across much of Europe and reached into the U.K.
The good news is that this year the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Paris Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, is looking to establish a universal agreement on how to tackle the problem.
To raise awareness of the conference, on Sept. 27 Paris did the unthinkable. It enacted the first un jour sans voiture, or a day without cars. Except for emergency vehicles, the normally crowded boulevards were free of traffic, enabling pedestrians to explore some of Paris’ most iconic sites without fear of being run over. Anyone who has tried to negotiate the circle around the Arc de Triumph on foot knows whereof I speak.
Most importantly, the daylong traffic ban made for some exhaust-free, breathable air.
While there are no concrete plans afoot, the city of Paris is not ruling out “maybe in the future repeating the experience either once a month or other timeframe,” according to Marion Fourestier, director of communications - USA.
“For over 12 years the city of Paris, through a program called Paris Respire [or Paris Breathes], has instituted street and ‘voies sur berge’ [river bank] closures on Sundays and holidays so people can rollerblade, bike or walk in streets ... usually reserved for car traffic,” Fourestier said, adding that the current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is extending Paris Respire to new neighborhoods and taken other initiatives to make Paris a more environmentally friendly place for its residents and visitors.
“There have also been many other initiatives, building of tramway routes, planting of trees, vertical gardens, for example, to reduce pollution in Paris,” Fourestier said.
If Paris does adopt a more frequent car-free day events, it won’t be Europe’s first. Brussels, no stranger to polluting traffic, has been imposing an annual daylong car ban for more than a dozen years.
And as we all know, pollution is anything but chic.