Paris residents vote in favour of making 500 more streets pedestrian

PARIS (Reuters) - Parisians voted successful a referendum connected Sunday to pedestrianise a further 500 of the city's streets, giving caller momentum to efforts by the French capital's left-leaning municipality hallway to curb car usage and amended aerial quality.

Some 65.96% of Parisians voted successful favour of the measure, portion 34.04% rejected it, authoritative results showed. Only 4.06% of voters turned retired successful the consultation, which was organised by the municipality.

This was the 3rd specified referendum successful Paris successful arsenic galore years, pursuing a 2023 ballot that approved a prohibition connected e-scooters, and a determination past twelvemonth to triple parking charges for ample SUVs.

The referendum volition destruct 10,000 much parking spots successful Paris, adding to the 10,000 removed since 2020. The city's 2 cardinal residents volition beryllium consulted connected which streets volition go pedestrian areas.

Paris municipality hallway information shows car postulation successful the metropolis has much than halved since the Socialists took powerfulness successful the superior astatine the crook of the century.

The 500 further streets to beryllium pedestrianised volition bring the full fig of these alleged "green lungs" to astir 700, conscionable implicit one-tenth of the capital's streets.

Despite caller changes, Paris lags different European capitals successful presumption of greenish infrastructure - which see backstage gardens, parks, tree-lined streets, h2o and wetlands - making up lone 26% of the metropolis country versus a European capitals mean of 41%, according to the European Environment Agency.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Gareth Jones)