Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo To Make Good On Pledge To Remove Half Of City’s Car Parking Spaces

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo To Make Good On Pledge To Remove Half Of City’s Car Parking Spaces

Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo poses inside a car. Photo by JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP via Getty Images.



AFP via Getty Images

Before she was reelected in June, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo pledged to make more space on the streets of her adopted city for pedestrians and cyclists by removing car parking spaces.

On January 29, Hidalgo revealed that the space required to make Paris more people friendly would have to come at the expense of motoring. She told electors she would remove 72% of the on-street car parking spaces in Paris, and despite car parking being the supposed “third rail” of urbanism—touch it at your peril—she was comfortably voted in for a second term.

According to a 2019 study by Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme