Transportation
Court Says Paris's Car Ban Is Illegal
The city vows to fight for its plans to pedestrianize a major thoroughfare along the river Seine.
One of France’s most dramatic urban transformations is under threat.
On Wednesday, Paris’s Administrative Court ruled that the city’s decision to ban cars from a promenade along the river Seine was illegal. For a city administration that approached the area’s car-calming, anti-pollution measures with a striking single-mindedness of mission, this decision is a bombshell. If Paris City Hall’s already-planned appeal fails, heavy car traffic will again return to what had become a riverside walkway reserved exclusively for pedestrians and cyclists.