Tourism news, the City is advertising their plan to reshape and enhance public realm over the Champs-Élysées area, that goes from the Concorde square to the Arc de Triomphe.
It mostly consists in stealing a lot of room from cars to give it back to pedestrians and bikes, so the overall public space feels more balanced and friendly.
Of course, you'll hear motorists grumble at this plan, as usual these days, but they need to realize that their cars have monopolized most (if not downright all) of the room in the streets since the 1960s, which is backward. It's only fair to rebalance public spaces in that matter.
I just read a comment by ZeusUpsistos on the French forum, who went to the Pavillon de l'Arsenal for a related exhibition to expose the plan in further details to the public.
I'll quote him.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ZeusUpsistos
Au delà de ce qui a été dit, plein de propositions que j'ai trouvé vraiment très intéressantes, des sols moins bruyants et permettant de limiter la chaleur dégagée, le traitement des allées en fonction de l'ensoleillement, une végétation adaptée au climat, etc.
Et ce que j'aime beaucoup, au delà évidemment de la réduction drastique des voies de circulation sur l'avenue et du réaménagement des places, c'est la piétonnisation de l'avenue W. Churchill entre le Grand et Petit Palais ainsi que le pont Alexandre III permettant la continuité avec la rive gauche et les Invalides, un peu de la même manière que le projet du Champs de Mars, et également la couverture du Cours la Reine pour lui rendre entièrement son usage de promenade le long de la Seine.
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So they'd be considering a change in materials for the pavement everywhere (sidewalks, car and bike lanes), as seen in their CGI video. The ground doesn't look like this at all for now.
The problem is heat waves are more and more frequent in the summer. It can be as hot as in Houston, Texas over here nowadays, well in the 100s Fahrenheit degrees. Thereby, they're studying some pavement that wouldn't seize too much heat while exposed to the sun, so it doesn't release it at night (which is hellish and forces people to rush on air conditioners).
More greenery should also help walkers / strollers stand heat waves. I see they're planning to plant more trees around the Concorde square for instance, which certainly won't hurt.
They're also planning to entirely pedestrianize the W. Churchill avenue, that's where the Grand and Petit Palais sit (some buildings meant for art exhibitions; see 2:10 in the video).
Once again, get ready for growling motorists who'll call it some shocking socialist policy / tyranny intended to merely ban cars from the central city, while the Churchill ave is only very short anyway, so pedestrianizing it doesn't seem such a big deal to me.
I don't know what's exactly planned for the Alexandre III bridge that's in the extension of that short avenue. Maybe keeping a couple of car lanes over the bridge would be wise, though.
Otherwise, the video shows some playgrounds meant for little kids and cafés that don't exist yet in the Champs-Élysées garden.
That's just about it. Notice that the municipal election is next month, so this is some way for the current city administration to tell the people - vote for us, then we'll do this thing.
I don't know what center-right candidate Rachida Dati has been planning in that matter. Hopefully, she wouldn't mess it all up on behalf of annoying motorist freedom if she happened to be elected.
That'd be pretty idiotic from her to cancel that plan. Pedestrians and bikes are entitled to freedom too, huh.