Driven To Despair, Paris Heads For Gridlock
Transport rows and vast traffic tailbacks are turning the city of light into the capital of road rage
Alex Duval Smith in Paris
Sunday January 16, 2005
The Observer
...........Everyone agrees that driving in Paris has never been as bad as in the past two weeks when roadworks marked by yellow signs seem to have sprung up everywhere.
"The socialists and Greens in the city hall are deliberately making our life hell. I would be happy to pay an annual charge to drive in Paris. It would be tax-deductible for us anyway," he says to nods of approval from his colleagues in the shop. "But the mayor and his friends say charges are elitist."
The radio is playing music but it won't be long until the next talk show in which motorists - and pedestrians and bus passengers - call in with hellish stories of four-hour journeys from the suburbs, and praise for London's congestion charge, Strasbourg's free bicycles and the Dutch idea of motorway express lanes for buses.
Since being elected in 2001, socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë has embarked on a campaign to cut pollution, build a tramline, broaden pavements and oblige motorists to respect bus and cycle lanes. But while the number of cars in central Paris has fallen by 5% since 2002, their speed has declined by 1% and rush hour has increased by 60 minutes..........
From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1391456,00.html
My emphasis.