The Champs-Élysées is an iconic Paris landmark and it is in for an upgrade.
Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is planning to restore the iconic road to its former glory. Her ambitious $400 million NZD initiative aims to transform the iconic street into “a beautiful garden.”
The project’s first goal is to bring down pollution by reducing the avenue’s eight car lanes to just four. They will be replaced with trees and bike lanes. From 2030, only electric vehicles will be allowed on the Champs-Élysées.
The area around the Place de La Concorde will also be renovated before the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. A key part of this will be a redesign for The Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. Both areas will be closed off to cars and lined with trees and wide pedestrian streets.
The transformation of the Place de la Concorde — the city’s largest public square — will be completed in time for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. The rest of the project will be done by 2030.
What is the Champs-Élysées?
It is a large road that connects the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde. It measures around 1.9km in length and was once a popular place for locals to walk and picnic.
However, it is now a tourist hotspot, filled with expensive cafes and designer shops. But The “most beautiful avenue in the world” has also fallen into disrepair. The pavements are cracked and the once-lush trees are struggling to survive. A key reason for this is the pollution from the 64,000 cars that pass through daily.
