Paris Puts Weekday Ban on Pre-1997 Cars to Curb Emissions

Paris
People walk on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, May 8. From July, old cars won't be allowed to drive in the city during most of the week. Jacky Naegelen/Reuters

Paris is to ban cars registered before 1997 from its streets in a bid to cut emissions, French media has reported.

According to Le Monde, from July 1 cars registered before 1997 and motorcycles registered before 2000 will be banned from the city center during the daytime on weekdays. Those vehicles represent 10 percent of the traffic on the city's streets.

The decision follows the resolution of a dispute between the office of the city's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, and France's environment ministry. The environment ministry's original plan could have banned up to a third of the cars currently driving in the city, Les Echos reported.

Different cities across the world are mulling vehicle restrictions as part of the race to cut air pollution.

Paris has already experimented with one-day blanket car bans in different areas of the city, Oslo's city leadership said in 2015 it intended to ban cars from the city center within four years, and London's former mayor Boris Johnson committed to delivering an "ultra-low emissions zone" by 2020, which would introduce heavy charges for vehicles that do not meet stringent emissions standards.

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