Paris’ car-free initiatives are improving urban air quality

Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces, and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.

Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.

Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality for France’s capital region, said this week that fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) levels have decreased 55 percent since 2005, while nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 50 percent. It attributed this to “regulations and public policies,” including steps to limit traffic and ban the most polluting vehicles.

Air pollution heat maps show the levels of 20 years ago as a pulsing red, almost every neighborhood above the European Union’s limit for nitrogen dioxide, which results from the combustion of fossil fuels. By 2023, the red zone had shrunk to only a web of fine lines across and around the city, representing the busiest roads and highways.

The change shows how ambitious policymaking can directly improve health in large cities. Health experts often describe air pollution as a silent killer. Both PM 2.5 and nitrogen dioxide have been linked to major health problems, including heart attacks, lung cancer, bronchitis, and asthma.

Paris has been led since 2014 by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist who has pushed for many green policies and described her wish for a “Paris that breathes, a Paris that is more agreeable to live in.”

Her proposals have faced pushback from right-leaning politicians, a car owners’ association, and suburban commuters, who say that targeting cars makes their lives more difficult.

But last month, Parisians voted in a referendum to turn an additional 500 streets over to pedestrians. A year earlier, Paris had moved to increase SUV parking fees sharply, forcing drivers to pay three times more than they would for smaller cars. The city has also turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone and banned most car traffic from the shopping boulevard of Rue de Rivoli.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said the French capital has developed “an urban policy based on well-being.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/12/air-pollution-paris-health-cars/