Paris Plans an Urban Forest for a Busy Roundabout

Paris will plant an “urban forest” at Place de Catalogne, a busy roundabout with close proximity to the Gare Montparnasse railway station. The city will add nearly 500 trees to the roundabout.

The new urban forest project will help with cooling to combat the urban heat island effect as well as contribute to an overall plan for improving air quality and reducing emissions that contribute to global warming.

“The temperatures one could feel in this little forest will be 4 degrees lower compared to what we could have outside it and so, it will be very pleasant,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo said, as reported by Reuters. “There’s also some work on recycling rainwater, and here, too, we can recycle rainwater to be able to water, maintain, allow this urban forest to thrive. So it will really be pleasant.”

The roundabout was formerly a busy car traffic site but is now a bike-friendly area, which connects to a bike lane leading to suburbs south of the city. With the addition of 478 newly planted trees, it will further expand its purpose by becoming an urban green space.

The site is expected to be fully planted by June 2024.

In addition to planting trees at Place de Catalogne, the city expects to plant a total of 170,000 trees from 2020 to 2026. So far, about 63,000 trees have been planted toward this goal.

Hidalgo launched an initiative in 2019 to incorporate more urban forest areas throughout Paris, with an ultimate goal to make half of the city covered in vegetation and to become a carbon-neutral city by 2050.

“I am convinced that Paris must adapt to changing temperatures,” Hidalgo said in 2019 about the urban forest plan, as reported by Dezeen. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts heatwaves at 50 degrees Celsius by 2050. We have an obligation to act today.”

Further, city officials announced in 2021 a plan for the city to become completely cyclable by 2026 with the Plan Velo: Act 2, which will add a total of 130 kilometers (over 80 miles) of bikeable pathways throughout the city.

Earlier this year, officials announced another green initiative: to make the Seine swimmable again after a century-long ban. Sewage drainage into the river led to a long ban on swimming in the famous river, but officials have been working to clean up the river and create new outlets for wastewater to travel. About 30 to 35 fish species have returned to the river as a result.