This week, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, gave the green light to a dramatic transformation of the most famous boulevard in the French capital, the Champs Elysées. Promising to turn the 2.3-kilometer 1.4-mile strip from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe into an “extraordinary garden” of the city The $ 305 million plan, designed by PCA-Stream architects, will halve the space allocated to cars, significantly increase the coverage of trees in the area and seek to encourage more small-scale shops along the boulevard.
The project, called “Re-Enchanting the Champs Elysées” and to be completed by 2030, is probably delayed. While the street still largely retains its international label as “the most beautiful boulevard in the world”, the reputation of the Champs Elysées among Parisians has been tarnished for some time. Despite its grand buildings and dramatic views, the boulevard has been widely criticized in France for being polluted, crowded, expensive and – due to brand saturation and intense tourism – even “old fashioned,“Probably the best term for” past. “
The current lack of love between the locals for the Champs Elysées is an open secret. A 2019 survey found that 30% of Parisians did not agree with the “most beautiful” label – a proportion that increased as respondents lived closer to the boulevard itself – 71% rejecting the street as “touristy”. Even the city, in its renovation proposals, acknowledged that the street was now known as a meeting point for “the great international chains perceived as antiseptic and difficult to distinguish.”
More space for bicycles and walks, less room for cars and much more trees.
PCA-Stream playback
Most big cities have an insipid but popular commercial hub with a similar function – New York’s Times Square or Amsterdam Leidseplein come to mind. However, a specific problem of the Champs Elysées is that they are both old fashioned and too expensive to be truly affordable. Even the emporia for domestic brands, such as a huge Louis Vuitton flagship, makes street retail offers feel like a very expensive airport. Trolleys don’t come here just for shopping, of course, but with heavy vehicle traffic and large stretches of asphalt radiating heat, it’s no ideal place for cafe terraces.
As a result, the locals are far away. PCA-Stream’s investigations into the flow of people in the area found that once you expected business people along the street, only 15% of pedestrians on the Champs Elysées came from Greater Paris.
The new makeover will not automatically make the street highway, but it will certainly make the boulevard a more pleasant place to stay, much in line with other ecological and car calming projects already underway elsewhere in Paris. Current renderings (still potentially susceptible to further adaptation) show that sidewalks will be roughly doubled in width, while lanes will be reduced to four – even around Place de L’Étoile, a multi-spoke intersection that connects all boulevards. essential for the north-western circulation of Paris. Generous bike lanes will flank both sides, while the remaining vehicles are presented in renderings (somewhat optimistically) as they mix peacefully with pedestrians, suggesting that an as yet unannounced speed reduction will also be introduced. This pedestrian space will be shaded by a newly lined line of trees, and the pavement below them partially cleaned to create a more rain-absorbing surface.
However, at the eastern end of the boulevard, at Place de la Corcorde, you will see the biggest change – a change that, unlike the rest of the project, should take place before the 2024 Olympics. Here, now spectacular, but the rather arid market, hidden behind traffic lines, will be visually remodeled by planting. What is now a vast area of paving stones will be filled with lawns shaded by trees that tighten the fountains of the square like a pair of open lips. In the meantime, a major road will be buried on the southern edge of the square, with the area planted with grass and bushes. Panoramic views over the square will probably be lost at several points, but the space feels more accessible to pedestrians. Joining the existing gardens, you will finally be able to walk from the Louvre to the Arch of Triumph under leaf cover, breathing cleaner air into a green space dotted with benches and water fountains.
Covering a submerged road will create even more green space.
PCA-Stream playback
Business along the boulevard should also be due to changes. The public consultation found that citizens wanted a “a more authentic and French retail offer, “according to the city, one” that focuses on the French art of living survey and gastronomy ”. Given the popularity of the street among visitors – and the high commercial rents that force businesses to have a large turnover to survive – this guideline could risk creating a theme park version of French culture that could itself be continuation old fashioned aspects of it. The desire to make the boulevard more of a monument and less of a mall seems a promising sign.
And yet, a calmer and car-free Champs Elysées can still be a shock. This is, after all, a multi-lane artery in which traffic has long been part of the scene. In the days before cars were recognized as more harmful, the tangle of Citroëns and Renaults weaving around the Arc de Triomphe was considered a partly Chinese spectacle – proof that city life was hard and dirty, but also dynamic and vibrant. Few might want to keep this scene, but a Champs Elysées free cars will be a very different place – a great axial path that is no longer primarily dedicated to movement.
More than a decade ago, a somewhat similar transformation crossed the intersection of an American metropolis, partly pedestrian Times Square in New York City. That still angers some New Yorkers nostalgic for the hustle and bustle of the past, and Hidalgo may find some resilient Parisians just as likely to drive cars along this boulevard; her multi-year campaign to rid the city of car domination has been marked by such a push in the past. But if the wave without cars continues – and developments in other European cities, including Brussels and Madrid suggests that perhaps – larger urban spaces could look forward to a less hectic future.