Paris police do not want the proposed limited traffic zone to be established until after the 2024 Olympic Games are over ©Getty Images

Municipal officials and police are at odds over the timing and extent of the limited traffic zone (ZTL) to be set up in Paris, with the latter insisting the measure should wait until after next year's Olympics.

Town hall officials want the new measure to be implemented early next year, but Elise Lavielle, deputy-head of the Paris police prefecture, says it should wait until after the Games, Le Parisien reports.

The ZTL which is currently the subject of negotiation between the city and its police force will ensure that a section of central Paris is reserved for local residents and public transport.

Elise Lavielle, deputy-head of the Paris police prefect since 2022, told the daily Ile-de-France that the ZTL should wait until after the Games, saying: "The implementation before the Olympics, it is early.

Ariel Weil, mayor of Paris Centre since 2020, appeared to concur with Lavielle when he said: "We know that preparing for the Games absorbs all the effort … the Olympics will in any case be a kind of prefiguration of the ZTL."

Town hall officials want the new measure to be implemented early next year, but Elise Lavielle, deputy-head of the Paris police prefecture, says it should wait until after the Games ©Getty Images
Town hall officials want the new measure to be implemented early next year, but Elise Lavielle, deputy-head of the Paris police prefecture, says it should wait until after the Games ©Getty Images

There are also internal disagreements over the proposed extent of the ZTL.

While the town hall wants to include the V, VI and VIIth arrondissements, the police prefecture envisages a reduced area, with areas of the left bank and the islands of the city and Saint-Louis excluded.

Also against the city authority’s wishes, the prefecture wants transit traffic to continue to have access to the high quays on the right bank of the Seine.

City officials also want to keep the Olympic lanes that will be created for Paris 2024 on the capital's ring road, the Périphérique, for use by public transport, taxis and carpooling schemes.

Transport issues will be eased for the Olympics and Paralympics during a four-week period next year when, as the International Olympic Committee requires, the left-hand lane - one in each direction - on around three-quarters of the 35 kilometres of urban motorway that circles the city will be given over to members of the "Olympic family".