Paris car ban stopped after one day

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/paris-stops-car-ban-one-day

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The French government has halted a controversial scheme to ban half of the traffic from Paris streets after a single day, claiming that the experiment aimed at curbing harmful pollution had been successful and that the vast majority of Parisians had co-operated.

"Bravo, and thank you," the ecology minister, Philippe Martin, said in a message to the residents of Paris and the surrounding region as he announced that the alternating driving scheme would end at midnight on Monday.

Under the emergency regulations, 700 police had been ordered onto the streets from dawn to ensure that only cars and motorbikes bearing odd-numbered plates were being driven.

Martin said that 90% of Parisians had complied with the restrictions that disrupted their driving habits for the first time since 1997, after five straight days of dangerous smog over the capital. He insisted that there had been none of the chaos feared after the last such experiment 17 years ago.

By the afternoon, police had issued 3,859 drivers with €22 (£18) fines for driving with the incorrect number plates.

Martin said the government decided against extending the restrictions because the weather conditions were improving and the pollution level would not breach the safe limit on Tuesday. But experts said it would take some time to determine the impact of the car ban on the pollution levels.

Minute particles of PM10 emitted by diesel exhausts, woodsmoke and industrial emissions are blamed for causing the smog. The level peaked last Friday at 180 microgrammes, more than double the safe limit of 80 microgrammes.

Parisians had given a mixed reaction to the traffic experiment. Pierre Murat, a 23 year old painter, said he agreed with the traffic restrictions because "last week it was hard to breathe". But "they didn't give us enough time to prepare," he said. He was using his motorbike – with an outlawed even-numbered plate – because he needed it for work.

At Denfert-Rochereau Square in southern Paris, Superintendent Pierre-Etienne Hourlier of Paris police said that 50 fines had been handed out during the morning rush hour. But he stressed that the majority of Parisians were respecting the ban, "and we have less than 60% of normal traffic on the road today."

The government has been accused by opposition parties of waiting too long before announcing the temporary ban. The prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, only acted after mounting pressure from the Socialist government's Europe Ecology Green (EELV) partners in the coalition government who say the measures are too little, too late.

On Monday, a political row between the two parties broke out over diesel fuelled buses, after the Socialist candidate for Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who is the first deputy to outgoing mayor Bertrand Delanoe, accused the Greens of involvement in a city decision to purchase a fleet of 320 diesel-powered vehicles.

But Cécile Duflot, the Green housing minister who had pressed for the temporary car ban, denied that the Greens had a say in the initial decision in February last year.

Hidalgo, speaking one week before next Sunday's municipal elections, has also accused her centre-right rival – former ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet – of being responsible for policies which encouraged the French to buy diesel cars.

As well as reducing the number of traffic jams around Paris to 5km on Monday, the new measures brought other benefits: Parisians were diverted onto temporarily free public transport, and also turned to the Vélib public bikes, which have been used by an additional 60,000 customers since last Thursday.

But the free metro and bus travel costs €4m per day, according to Jean-Paul Huchon, the head of the regional transport authority.

Meanwhile, automobile associations opposed the emergency restrictions, and an online poll by the weekly magazine Le Point showed that 64% of respondents were against them.