Since 2020, the city of Paris has been gradually transforming the areas around its schools into ‘rues aux écoles’ or ‘school streets, a scheme designed to make school journeys safer, reduce pollution and give space back to pedestriansi. This ambitious project, supported by parents, associations and the town council, is part of a drive to make the transition to a greener future and reclaim public spaceii.

But what is a rue aux écoles in reality? A rue aux écoles is essentially a pedestrianized area near a nursery or primary schooliii. It is generally closed to motorized traffic during school opening and closing times but can also be completely pedestrianized depending on the layout. Closures are often temporary, such as removable barriers that allow emergency vehicles and essential services to pass through while keeping motorized vehicles outiv.

The main aims of these developments are to improve children's safety by reducing the risks associated with road traffic, to reduce air and noise pollution near schools, to create calming, green public spaces that encourage active mobility, and to strengthen social links by transforming the school into a central place for neighbourhood lifev.

By 17 September 2024, 218 streets had already been ‘calmed’, according to the City of Paris, covering around half of the capital's nursery and primary schools. Of these, 70 have been improved by removing the pavement and planting shrubs. The aim is to achieve 300 calmed streets and 100 improved streets by 2026, with an overall budget of €110 million for the 2020-2026 termvi.

Legislative, urban planning and development issues

A legal framework that is still incomplete

Currently, the development of ‘school streets in Paris is based mainly on municipal by-laws, defining the times when traffic is closed, the areas concerned, exemptions (emergency services, deliveries at certain times, etc.), the pedestrianization procedures and possible exceptions. This framework remains local and flexible, facilitating experimentation. However, there is as yet no specific national legislative framework governing these arrangements from streets to schools, which may lead to disparities in their implementation and sustainabilityvii. This lack of a national framework means that funding essentially depends on local authorities, which ultimately creates territorial inequalities in the implementation of the scheme: a draft law on school air protection zones has not yet been adopted.

Some associations are calling for legal recognition in the local authority code and for government support to fund these projects in the most polluted areas: associations such as Respire and Rues aux enfants are calling for special status for these streets to be enshrined in law, in particular to speed up their deployment in towns outside the metropolisesviii.

Urban planning and development: a concrete and measurable reconfiguration of public space

The development of streets for schools involves a physical transformation of the roadway, including the planting of areas, the installation of appropriate street furniture or the introduction of safety devices. These projects are carried out in consultation with residents and local stakeholders, so that each project is designed according to the specific characteristics of the neighbourhood and the needs of users. According to the City of Paris, 70 of the 218 streets already calmed by the summer of 2024ix have been planted with vegetation, cleared of asphalt (with on average, 1,000 m² of asphalt have been removed per street transformed), or equipped with street furniture (benches, games, bicycle racks)x. Some streets have become veritable open-air school playgrounds, like rue Saint-Blaise in the 20th arrondissement.
 

The objective is to reach 100 fully redeveloped streets (greening, benches, road removal) by 2026. Nevertheless, these ambitions face both a high unit cost (between €150,000 and €500,000 per redevelopment depending on the infrastructure implemented) and technical constraints such as the management of stakeholder groups, accessibility by persons with reduced mobility), or the continuity of access for residents and local businessesxi.

A strategic link between urban planning, mobility policies and ecological transition

School streets are part of a comprehensive strategy for redeveloping public space aimed at reducing the presence of cars in the city and at promoting soft mobility. They complement other initiatives such as the limited traffic zones (= Limited Traffic Zones), the Vélib network (Paris’s shared bicycle system), or the Cycling Plan and shared space zones.

Some of the municipal objectives set by the City of Paris during the 2020–2026 term include limiting through traffic in central Paris by 2025 (LTZ), creating 300 school streets, of which 100 are fully redeveloped and permanently closed from traffic, and reaching a 40% decrease in NO₂ concentration in school zones by 2030xii.

These projects require in any case coordination between the various municipal departments and local stakeholders to ensure coherence and effectiveness (roads, schools, green spaces, citizen consultation), as well as integration into the bioclimatic Local Urban Plan (PLU) (adopted in 2024), which sets mandatory objectives for de-sealing and greening in all street redevelopment projectsxiii.

Impact on air quality and health

Studies conducted by the associations Respire and Airgones show that school streets have a significant impact on air quality. Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) concentrations can decrease by up to 30% near pedestrianized schoolsxiv. This reduction is particularly beneficial to children, whose bodies are more vulnerable to the effects of pollution. In France, three out of four children breathe polluted air, which can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular diseasesxv.

My personal experience with school streets: 
a redevelopment not as consultative as claimed

The 13th arrondissement of Paris, where I live, is one of the pioneers in implementing school streets, with a particularly high concentration of them (see map above created by the Paris Urban Planning Workshop)xvi. Several public or private educational institutions have benefited from these redevelopments, whether through the transformation of the street into a pedestrian area or the pedestrianization of nearby streets, squares, or avenuesxvii.

These redevelopments were carried out in consultation with parents, educational staff, and local residentsxviii. Feedback has allowed for adjustments based on the specific needs of each neighborhood, as each arrondissement and neighborhood has its own specificities and is far from forming a homogeneous whole.

As for the street I live on, which includes several schools and nurseries, this pedestrianization and transformation into a school street did not happen smoothly, as was the case in many other neighborhoods: in fact, it led to many protests and demands from residents and locals, who were not, or were barely, consulted as part of this urban redevelopment project. In 2021, while the city had placed signs and informational posters near the street, a petition was launched in protest (see below), asking for modifications and the consideration of local particularities that had been overlooked in this projectxix.

Residents accused the city of having started the construction work in the middle of summer, when most people were away on holiday, with no prior consultation or information about the project, thus having “taken advantage” of their absence to begin its execution quickly.

What is the layout of the street? On the odd-numbered side, a Paris Habitat building is mainly composed of artist studios and a few social housing units. On the even-numbered side, there is a nursery and a kindergarten with a wide sidewalk, trees, and barriers ensuring children’s safety. It is a low-traffic street, where residents, children, parents, teachers and neighbors live in harmony, without conflict or disagreement.

The city initially planned full pedestrianization, meaning a complete ban on car traffic, the removal of all 25 parking spaces, including those reserved for disabled users, and local access under condition, with locked gates. Yet, many artists (painters, sculptors, photographers, etc.), as well as disabled or elderly residents, rely heavily on these parking spaces, either for their work or due to their physical condition. After many months and years of struggle, which began in 2021xx, and with the works recently completed in 2024/2025, a compromise was found: traffic was maintained but turned one-way, a few parking spaces reserved for residents and disable people were kept, and the barriers at the ends of the street were removed.

This compromise generally satisfies the residents, parents, the city, and the schools, the latter being relatively green, which has helped to beautify the street (see before/after photo).

Today, residents, parents, children and teachers seem to be satisfied with the compromise reached: a free-flowing one-way street at all times of the day, the removal of the barriers put in place at the ends of the street (at the start of the works) blocking access to cars, and the retention of a few parking spaces combined with increased planting to beautify the street. We had to wait a few months and the arrival of the summer season to see the benefits of the shrubs and flowers planted in the street, which were not very aesthetic to begin with. For the children and parents of the schoolchildren, there is complete satisfaction, as this development is combined with the numerous pedestrian crossings and the town's traffic control officers in the vicinity of the schools, which were already in place, making it safer for children to access the schools.

The geographical situation of the rue Ricaut before the beginning of the public works in 2021
City of Paris

This example, taken from a street in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, clearly illustrates both the benefits and the shortcomings of the streets to schools programme, as well as the need to go through various stages in the process of designing, building and implementing an urban development project of this kind: it must necessarily be in line with local realities and be based on the opinions of residents, who know their street, daily life and the characteristics of their place of residence better than anyone else and can be valuable advisors to the city piloting the project. A project of this kind can meet with both rejection and acceptance, sometimes both at the same time or successively, depending on its characteristics, the circumstances and the context in which it is embedded. This rue aux écoles will have been able to satisfy the greatest number of people, given the compromise reached by dint of struggle, and will have made it possible, despite the removal of parking spaces and two-way traffic, to make the street quieter and greener, as part of the wider greening of the city of Paris plan that the city has been promoting for several years.

This school street program is often combined with other developments: in the 13th arrondissement, the creation of 7 school streets was anticipated as part of the T9 tramway extension project, integrating pedestrianization, tree planting, and sidewalk wideningxxi.

Acceptance and Contestation: School Streets Put to the Test of Local Realities

While the School Streets programme enjoys broad support from parents’ associations and environmental advocacy groupsxxii, its implementation has revealed numerous local tensions and sometimes profound disagreements among residents. The March 2024 referendum, in which 66% of Parisians voted in favour of extending pedestrianisation around schoolsxxiii (though with a very low turnout of 4%), highlighted this gap between declared consensus and actual engagementxxiv. In districts such as the 10th and 11th arrondissements, where air pollution and road hazards were perceived as particularly acute, total traffic bans have been more widely accepted. In contrast, other neighbourhoods, such as parts of the 13th arrondissement or the 18th, have seen significant resistance from local residents, shopkeepers, or artists’ workshops, who criticised what they saw as a lack of consultation and the risk of turning vibrant mixed-use streets into spaces that were overly sanitised or difficult to accessxxv. The example of the street near several schools and crèches in the 13th arrondissement is emblematic: the original plan provided for the complete elimination of traffic and all parking spaces, including those reserved for disabled residents and artists dependent on deliveries. After nearly three years of protest, petitions, and negotiations, a compromise was reached with a one-way traffic flow and a partial preservation of parking spaces, illustrating how local specificities can lead to differentiated solutions. More broadly, the acceptance of total pedestrianisation often correlates with factors such as the density of educational establishments, existing public transport services, the socio-economic composition of the area, and the presence of active local campaigns. Where these elements converge, the projects have generated fewer conflictsxxvi. Where they have not, School Streets have become the focus of disputes about mobility, the right to the city, and the place of cars in everyday life.

Conclusion

Thus, school streets represent a major step forward in the reappropriation of public space for the benefit of children and residents: they illustrate a strong political will to reconcile safety, health, and quality of urban life. However, their generalization requires an adapted legislative framework, coherent urban planning, and ongoing involvement of local actors, by integrating specific and local conditions, not only once the project has been launched but also upstream during the consultation phases.
The city must not only become greener for obvious environmental and climate reasons, but also be co-constructed, and not result from a purely unilateral political will. The generally positive feedback from residents, parents and schools testifies to the effectiveness of this initiative and its potential to transform Parisian neighborhoods sustainably, provided that it is adapted as it scales up.

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