The mayor of Paris wants to make all public transport free in an effort to reduce air pollution, but faces staunch opposition from the head of the regional transport authority who said the move would hit taxpayers.
Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans late on Monday for a study into the feasibility of free city-wide transport, and told French daily Les Echos she wanted to debate the issue ahead of municipal elections in 2020.
Hidalgo said all the world’s big cities were trying to develop clean mobility and boost air quality by reducing the number of cars on the roads, a goal that requires making public transport more attractive.
“To improve public transport we should not only make it more extensive, more regular and more comfortable, we must also rethink the fares system,” she said in a statement.
But conservative politician Valerie Pecresse, head of the Ile-de-France region around Paris and president of the area’s transport authority IDFM, rejected Hidalgo’s proposal, saying if travelers did not pay, taxpayers would have to do so.
Pecresse, who might challenge Hidalgo in the 2020 mayoral vote, said it would be unfair to make transport free for Parisians but not for people living in the suburbs.
Hidalgo did not spell out whether her proposal would cover just the 2.2 million residents of Paris or all 12 million living in the city and Ile-de-France region.
