Paris to Transform Champs-Élysées Into ‘Extraordinary Garden’

Avenue des Champs-Élysées from the top of Triumphal Arch (Place de l’Etoile / place Charles de Gaulle ) in Paris, France on June 15, 2020. legna69 / Getty Images Is Paris trading "la vie en rose" for "la vie en verte?" The Mayor of the French capital, Anne Hidalgo, told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche Sunday that the city would follow through on a $305 million project to transform the iconic Champs-Élysées into a haven for plants and pedestrians, as UPI reported . "[I]t will be [another] extraordinary garden," Hidalgo said. The changes are being designed by architect Philippe Chiambaretta of PCA-STREAM and include halving vehicle traffic and expanding sidewalks for pedestrians while creating "planted living rooms." The 1.2 mile avenue is also an eight-lane highway used by an average of 3,000 vehicles per hour and is currently more polluted than the road that surrounds Paris, The Guardian pointed out . The new greenery is partly intended to improve air quality. Chiambaretta said the avenue had become a symptom of the problems with modern cities: " pollution , the place of the car, tourism and consumerism", according to The Guardian. He said it needed to become more "ecological, desirable […]

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