Slow Zones

Lowering speed limits helps activate street life and foster social activity, creating more vibrant, liveable city streets. Streets within Slow Zones attract almost twice as many people, from wider reaches of the city, contributing to social mixing.

The project exploits the sharp spatial and temporal variation in a traffic speed policy implemented over five years in Paris to identify the effects of slowing cars and making streets friendlier to pedestrians on human activity. We found robust evidence that Paris’ Slow Zones initiative impacted human activity, fostering more activity from individuals attracted from a more diverse range of Paris to the treated street segments in the Slow Zones.

Our paper provides evidence showing that the type of policy implemented in Paris effectively encourages activity in newly regulated areas, offering a precedent for other cities in the future as they consider implementing similar policies aimed at reducing the speed of vehicles.