While the Parisian municipality has just confirmed its intention to set up the limited traffic zone “in the second half of 2022” – thus preventing the circulation of transit cars in the hypercentre of the capital -, many traders have expressed their concern. their mistrust of this measure.
This is the case of the Alliance du commerce and the Federation of associations of traders and artisans of Paris (Facap) who expressed their “deep concern” and called for a postponement of the establishment of the ZTL “to horizon 2024 ”in a joint press release issued on Wednesday, September 22.
Shops at the heart of all difficulties
Between the “strikes”, the “repeated demonstrations”, the “yellow vests”, the “Covid” and “the very rapid and uncoordinated development of the capital’s traffic plan”, the latter believe they have “been subject to unprecedented difficulties […] over the past four years ”.
“Difficulties” which, according to them, have resulted in “a significant drop in store visits. […] up to 34% on average during the first half of 2021 ”. “Customers will get into the habit of consuming outside of Paris”, alarmed this Thursday, September 23, Thierry Véron, the president of Facap, who also denounces the methods of the municipality imposing this project “without consultation”.
“We should have been kept informed, that we were offered appointments,” he adds, explaining that a postponement to 2024, rather than an implementation in 2022, would make it possible to take “Time to talk together”. And to add: “we are in a situation where we need to have exchanges with the City of Paris”.
Concerns answered by David Belliard, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of transport, who recalls that “the limited traffic zone” will not be a car-free zone “but” an area where transit traffic will disappear “, and that “the customers of the stores in the center” as “the craftsmen who have to work there” will be able to move freely within this perimeter. “For them, nothing will change”, assures the elected ecologist. “Of course motorists can do their shopping in the ZTL, but we do everything to ensure that they do not come”, deplores his side Thierry Véron.
Asked recently in Le Parisien on this subject, David Belliard announced that he was still “thinking about the terms” of the measure, “with all the stakeholders, including the neighboring districts”. As a reminder, a citizen consultation was launched on May 12 on this subject, the results of which should be communicated in October.