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Category: Air Pollution / Road Transport / Lifestyle and Leisure / Travel and Tourism

Champs-Elysees to be car-free once a month

Tuesday, 26 Apr 2016 14:00:38

The Champs Elysees avenue in Paris will be pedestrian-only once a month. (AFP: Boris Horvat)

The most famous boulevard in Paris, the Champs-Elysees, will be off-limits to cars on the first Sunday of every month starting in May.

The first pedestrian-only day will be May 8 instead of May 1, a public holiday, when many of the council workers needed to run the scheme will be off work, the office of Mayor Anne Hidalgo said.

From then on, cars will be banished from the two kilometre-long street on the first Sunday of every month, when museums in Paris are also free to the public.

The Eiffel Tower seen through thick smog. Photo: A photo taken on February 12, 2015 in Paris, shows the Eiffel Tower through thick smog.  (AFP: Patrick Kovarik)

Nine new routes will also be pedestrian-only every Sunday and public holiday — adding to the 13 already subject to traffic restrictions under the "Paris Respire" anti-pollution program.

The World Health Organisation says fine-particle air pollution is responsible for about 42,000 premature deaths in France each year.

Ms Hidalgo, a Socialist, has made fighting the smog that periodically shrouds the French capital one of her top priorities.

AFP

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