Anne Hidalgo talked about the political courage and coalition-building necessary to make Paris less car-centric. Photo by Liam Goodman/Clean Cities
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Our bonus episode this month is from another live event. Back in September, Sarah moderated a panel conversation with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo as part of Climate Week events in New York City. The event was presented by the Clean Cities Campaign and Respire, a Paris-based nonprofit that focuses on improving air quality.
Hidalgo has been mayor of Paris since 2014. In that time she has implemented a number of policies that have transformed the city for the better—removing cars from the banks of the Seine and turning the riverfront into a linear park; building out an extensive bike network; slowing traffic and reducing emissions on the city’s ring road; and creating hundreds of car-free school streets where children can play safely. As a result of these policies, which built on the work of her predecessor, the air pollution in Paris is now 55 percent less than it was in 2005. Hidalgo also spearheaded an effort to clean up the Seine so that swimmers could compete there in the 2024 Olympics, and now Parisians are swimming in the river for the first time in generations.
We talked about all that at the Climate Week event. Unfortunately, due to some technical glitches we only captured the second half of the conversation. We pick up where the mayor is telling us about her very personal motivation to reclaim the river Seine for her city’s people. You’ll also hear from Dr. María Neira, a Spanish physician who is former director of public health and environment at the World Health Organization and who worked closely on policy with Mayor Hidalgo; Tim Gill, an independent researcher and advocate for children’s play and mobility; and William Todts, executive director of the nonprofit transportation and environment advocacy group T & E. We also had a surprise mayoral guest, Matúš Vallo, who leads the city of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.
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