Paris, like other cities faced with the difficult problem of integrating their urban motorways, has commissioned studies concerning the re-classification of the Boulevard Périphérique, and its surrounding areas. Here as elsewhere, the city’s key players have long viewed the expressway, which is both a source of pollution and an extraordinary access route, in technical terms. However, examples of different approaches and practices in France and abroad are making an appearance, giving evidence of recent changes in the way these large modern infrastructures are considered. In Paris, with over 60 projects being carried out by the City and adjoining communes, the ongoing process of urban renewal is repositioning the inner suburbs as areas of structural importance for the centre of the conglomeration.
But the extent of the changes underway and the myriad projects require a long-term global vision guided by a development strategy shared by all the City’s key players and Departments. This study makes proposals about the main directions this development should take and recommends looking at the Boulevard Périphérique as a whole in all its complexity and including its wider environment. It suggests considering the real potential of these territories which link Paris and the conglomeration.
The study, in order to clearly establish the connection between local and metropolitan scales and the city and this infrastructure, and to revive the really positive uses of this boundary area around Paris, has put together proposals aimed at responding very concretely to the three essential challenges posed by the infrastructure and the green belt: programming, crossings and urban integration of the Boulevard Périphérique.