This week, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, gave the green light for a dramatic renovation of the most famous avenue in the French capital, the Champs Elysées. Promising to transform the 2.3 mile (2.3 km) strip from Place de La Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe into an “extraordinary garden”, the The $ 305 million plan, devised by the PCA-Stream architects, will cut the space allocated for cars by approximately half, greatly increase the area’s tree cover and seek to encourage more small-scale stores along the avenue’s flanks.
The project, dubbed “Re-Enchanting the Champs Elysées” and scheduled for completion in 2030, is undoubtedly behind schedule. Although the street still largely retains its international brand as the “most beautiful avenue in the world”, the Champs Elysées’ reputation among Parisians has been low for some time. Despite its large buildings and dramatic views, the avenue has been widely criticized in France for being polluted, congested, expensive and – thanks to the brand’s saturation and intense tourism – even “ringarde,”A term probably best translated as“ old-fashioned ”.
The current lack of love among the locals for the Champs Elysées is an open secret. A 2019 survey found that 30% of Parisians disagreed with the “prettiest” tag – a proportion that increased the longer respondents lived on the avenue itself – with 71% dismissing the street as “touristy”. Even the city, in its reform proposals, acknowledged that the street was now known as a meeting point for “large international chains considered antiseptic and barely distinguishable”.
More space for bicycles and walkers, less space for cars and more trees.
Rendering courtesy of PCA-Stream
Most large cities have a dull but popular shopping center with a similar function – Times Square in New York or Leidseplein in Amsterdam come to mind. A specific problem with the Champs Elysées, however, is that both Ringarde and too expensive to be truly affordable. Even emporia for national brands, like a huge Louis Vuitton flagship, make the retail offerings down the street look like a very expensive airport. Baby strollers don’t just come here to shop, of course, but with heavy vehicle traffic and large stretches of asphalt that radiates heat, it’s also not an ideal place for coffee terraces.
As a result, the locals are avoiding. PCA-Stream’s investigations into the flow of people in the area found that, once people working in businesses along the street were discounted, only 15% of pedestrians on the Champs Elysées came from Greater Paris.
The new renovation will not automatically make the streets fashionable, but it will certainly make the avenue a more pleasant place to linger, much like other ecological and sedative car projects already carried out elsewhere in Paris. Current renderings (still potentially susceptible to retrofitting) show sidewalks almost doubling in width, while car lanes will be reduced to four – even around Place de L’Étoile, a multi-spoke intersection connecting all avenues essential to the northwestern circulation of Paris. Generous bike lanes will flank both sides, while the remaining vehicles are shown in renderings (somewhat optimistic) as well as blending peacefully with pedestrians, suggesting an unannounced reduction in speed will also be introduced. This pedestrian space will be shaded by a newly duplicated line of trees, and the pavement below them partially cleaned to create a more rain-absorbing surface.
It is at the east end of the avenue, on Place de la Corcorde, however, that the biggest change will take place – a change that, unlike the rest of the project, must be in place before the 2024 Olympic Games. Here, the currently spectacular square , but quite arid, isolated behind traffic lines, will be visually remodeled with planting. What is now a vast expanse of paving stones will be filled with lawns in the shade of trees surrounding the fountains in the square like a pair of open lips. Meanwhile, a large road at the south end of the square will be buried, with grass and shrubs planted on the surface. Panoramic views of the square are likely to be missed at various points, but the space appears to be more accessible to pedestrians. When joining the existing gardens, it will be possible to walk from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe under a leafy cover, breathing purer air in a green space full of banks and water sources.
Covering a sunken road will create even more green space.
Rendering courtesy of PCA-Stream
Businesses along the avenue are also expected to undergo some changes. Public consultation found that citizens wanted a “more authentic and French retail offer ”, according to the city,“ emphasizing the French art of living, savoir-faire and gastronomy ”. Given the popularity of the street with visitors – and the high commercial rents that force companies to have a high turnover to survive – this guideline may risk creating a theme park version of French culture that it might still have Ringarde aspects to him. The desire to make the avenue more of a monument and less of a shopping mall seems to be a promising sign.
And yet, a calmer, car-free Champs Elysées can be a shock. After all, it is a multi-lane road where traffic has long been part of the scene. Before cars were more widely recognized as harmful, the tangle of Citroëns and Renaults weaving around the Arc de Triomphe was considered a Parisian spectacle par excellence – proof that city life was noisy and dirty, but also dynamic and vibrant. Few may want to preserve this scene, but a Champs Elysées sans the cars will be a remarkably different place – a large axial avenue no longer dedicated primarily to movement.
More than a decade ago, a somewhat similar transformation swept the intersection of an American metropolis, New York’s partially pedestrian Times Square. It still pisses off some New Yorkers nostalgic for the hustle and bustle of the past, and Hidalgo may find that some Parisians also resist banning cars along this avenue; its multi-year campaign to free the city from automotive domination was marked by this setback in the past. But if the car-free wave continues – and developments in other European cities, including Brussels and Madrid suggests that yes – more large urban spaces can expect a less frantic future.