In Paris, the Châtelet is going to have a facelift. Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants to redevelop the square, located in the heart of the capital and a nerve center for traffic, by reducing the place of the car in favor of pedestrians, she explains in an interview with Sunday newspaper.
“It will be the end of the current roundabout” which distributes traffic between the quays of the Seine, the Île de la Cité and the left bank on one side, the rue de Rivoli and the boulevard de Sébastopol on the other, says the elected socialist.
The square will be “expanded and decluttered”
On the west side, in front of the Théâtre du Châtelet, “traffic will be reserved, on a single lane, for buses, taxis, priority vehicles and bicycles”, on the model of the Saint-Paul embankment (IVe), “with vast pedestrian spaces”, explains Anne Hidalgo, whose projects to reduce the space of the car have aroused the ire of motorists for years.
On the east side, that of the Théâtre de la Ville, renamed Sarah-Bernhardt for its reopening in September, “the entrance to boulevard Sébastopol will have two lines of traffic, a bus lane and a cycle path” in both directions, details the mayor . As for the square itself, where a monument commemorating Napoleon’s victories sits, it will be “enlarged and decluttered” with “removable trays and bleachers” and a new paving “sober and respectful of heritage”.
An estimated cost of 2 million euros
These facilities, the cost of which is estimated at 2 million euros, will be completed in the spring of 2024, in time for the Olympic Games, assures Anne Hidalgo.
Asked moreover about the reopening at the beginning of September of the Place du Châtelet of the Théâtre de la Ville – after seven years of work which exploded the final bill, estimated at around forty million euros – the mayor “assumes” a project “poorly started for lack of a sufficiently tight piloting”.
The ex-PS presidential candidate also plans to “remove the gates” from the square near the Saint-Jacques tower, a jewel of the 16th century, to “permanently enjoy its freshness”. His plan to remove the gates from the square adjoining Notre-Dame, one of the oldest in the capital, is already causing controversy. Nearly 50,000 people have already signed a petition demanding the restoration of the square to the same. “We organized a consultation and an international competition which unanimously designated a winning project, validated by all the heritage authorities of the country”, argues the mayor.