Without cars, rue de Rivoli in Paris is doing well but is still finding itself

Three kilometers long, bordered by the Tuileries garden and the Marais district, this street, which has been largely reserved for pedestrians, cyclists and buses since May 2020, has been in good commercial health, according to a study by corporate real estate specialist JLL commissioned by the City.

“A few years ago in this place, there were almost non-stop traffic jams and horns. Today the street is peaceful and that helps, contrary to the stupid beliefs of many traders who are afraid of losing their numbers” , assures Sylvain Dauphin. His clients include Parisians, residents of the inner suburbs as well as tourists renting Airbnbs, many of whom are at this street level.

Faced with the uninterrupted flow of bicycles in both directions, you must be careful when crossing to reach the shops. “People are afraid of being hit by cyclists, who never stop!” complains a saleswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The neighborhood has emptied and people no longer stop to consume. It has brought us nothing, it has been detrimental to us,” insists the woman who has worked in this cheese factory for almost 20 years.

“Diversity” of businesses

Same story in a grocery store which has lost regulars. When a customer notices that the street is very well served by public transport, another says: "But it's the apocalypse! Who's going to take the RER B to go buy honey?!"

Rue de Rivoli, however, has one of the lowest vacancy rates for premises in Paris (5,3%, compared to 9,7% in Opéra) despite exorbitant commercial rents, up to 3.200 euros per square meter per year, against 2.000 boulevard Saint-Germain.

“This clearly shows that the development and appeasement have not at all changed the +commerciality+ of the street”, underlines to AFP Nicolas Bonnet-Oulaldj, communist deputy to the mayor of Paris in charge of commerce, which welcomes the “diversity” of the brands.

Ariel Weil, PS mayor of central Paris, cites the example of Barcelona and Rome: “when we give space to pedestrians and soft mobility, the attractiveness of commercial arteries is reinforced”.

Right-wing opponent Aurélien Véron is not of this opinion, believing that "the dynamic is not homogeneous" and that "tourism is taking the place of the last inhabitants". He regrets an anti-car policy which, according to him, excludes the elderly, large families and people with reduced mobility.

Very windy VTC

Eléonore de Boysson, president of La Samaritaine, is pleased that the department store, which houses the 5-star Cheval Blanc hotel, "embodies the dynamism of this district on the verge of once again becoming one of the most hyped". But she hopes that the layout of the street will be improved.

“There is no parking lot for bicycles, the cycle paths are not sufficiently identified or secured and crossing for pedestrians can represent a danger,” she told AFP.

A few hundred meters away, the Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville (BHV) is "a typical example of businesses that are doing poorly", says Aurélien Véron. At the start of the redevelopment, "customers were complaining because they didn't want to pay for parking" where they were now forced to leave their cars, remembers a furniture salesman. “It impacted us.”

“Our ambition is to breathe new life into BHV and make it the department store for Parisians,” a spokesperson for the brand, bought in November from Galeries Lafayette by the Société des Grands Magasins, told AFP. .

VTCs, for their part, are not taking exception to their exclusion from the list of vehicles that can access rue de Rivoli. Uber thus filed an appeal against the town hall at the end of January.