Périphérique (Paris) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Boulevard Périphérique (bulvaʁ peʁifeʁik) is a controlled-access dual-carriageway ring road

Ring road

A ring road, orbital motorway, beltway, circumferential highway, or loop highway is a road that encircles a town or city...

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. One of the busiest highways in Europe, the Périphérique is the generally-accepted boundary between the city proper of Paris and its suburbs. Save for a few exceptions (see Structure and Layout), it is situated along Paris's administrative limit.

The speed limit is 80 km/h (50 mph). Each ring, or loop, generally provides four traffic lanes, and does not feature a hard shoulder. Due to the road's legal status, circulating traffic yields priority to entering vehicles.

When traveling at the legal speed limit, it takes around 26 minutes to complete a full circuit.

History

Construction of the Périphérique was begun in 1958 on the former site of the Thiers Wall

Thiers wall

The Thiers wall was the last of the defensive walls of Paris. It was an enclosure constructed between 1841 and 1844 under a law enacted by the government of the French prime minister, Adolphe Thiers. It covered , along the 'boulevards des Maréchaux' of today...

(the last remaining of the City walls of Paris

City walls of Paris

Over time, several city walls of Paris were built :* a gauloise enclosure * a Gallo-Roman wall* two medieval walls including the main one : the wall of Philippe Auguste* the wall of Charles V, extending on the right bank...

). Destruction of this obsolete structure in the 1920s left a clear ring of vacant land surrounding Paris, which at first was claimed by slums and squatters. In order to alleviate traffic congestion, the Boulevard was planned along this abandoned land, and completed on 25 April 1973 under the presidency of Georges Pompidou

Georges Pompidou

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...

. Providing a route for a quarter of all Parisian traffic movements, it quickly became the busiest road in France. However it became a victim of its own success with widespread congestion, while the dense urban area surrounding it prevents its expansion.

Noise reducing covers for the Périphérique are included in the 2000-2006 State-region Plan for three sections: Porte des Lilas, Porte de Vanves and the section from Porte des Ternes to Porte de Champerret. To date, the covers of Porte des Lilas and Porte de Vanves are complete but construction for Porte de Champerret has not yet begun.

Périphérique intérieur vs. extérieur

The Périphérique consists of two concentric carriageways: the intérieur ("inner ring") and the extérieur ("outer ring"). Vehicles travel clockwise on the inner ring and anticlockwise on the outer ring. Some stretches of the road are sometimes referred to by cardinal direction. For example, in the southern half of the highway, the "inner ring" is designated as the Périphérique Ouest ("Western Ring") as traffic flows westbound whereas the "outer ring" is designated as the Périphérique Est ("Eastern Ring") as traffic flows eastbound. In the northern half, these designations are reversed, respectively as the highway is circular.

Structure and layout

The structure of the Boulevard Périphérique is similar to most French autoroute

Autoroutes of France

The Autoroute system in France consists largely of toll roads, except around large cities and in parts of the north. It is a network of worth of motorways. Autoroute destinations are shown in blue, while destinations reached through a combination of autoroutes are shown with an added autoroute logo...

s, U.K. and Commonwealth nation motorways, and North American freeways in the following regards:

It is a two-ring, multiple-lane controlled access road with no at-grade crossings or traffic lights. Maximum longitudinal slope is 4%.
Traffic headed in opposite directions (each ring) is separated by a central reservation
Central reservation
On divided roads, such as divided highways or freeways/motorways, the central reservation , median, parkway , median strip or central nature strip is the area which separates opposing lanes of traffic...

(British English), also known as a median
Median
In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the numerical value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to...

(North American and Australian English).

The Boulevard Périphérique also retains some peculiar differences:

The "priorité à droite" applies: Motorists entering the right-hand lane have the right-of-way, i.e. priority over vehicles already in circulation in the ring road. This stems from the traditional rules governing Parisian boulevards.
To ensure safety and fluidity of movement in regard to the above difference, the right-hand lane is exclusively reserved for vehicles entering or preparing to leave the "normal" movement of vehicles in the other lanes, or the Boulevard itself. A solid white line separates the recently entered traffic and the circulating traffic. This is done to prevent entering from disrupting the flow of circulating traffic in the inner lanes, as without the line any traffic must yield to any entering traffic across all lanes.
There is the absence of a shoulder
Shoulder (road)
A hard shoulder, or simply shoulder, is a reserved area by the verge of a road or motorway. Generally it is kept clear of motor vehicle traffic...

(emergency lane). The Boulevard does not incorporate one along almost all of its route, except around the Porte de Gentilly. This means that accidents can cause considerable disruption to the traffic, and because of this emergency services also have difficulty getting to the scene of the accident.

There are generally four lanes in each of the two rings of the Boulevard. Notable variations exist:

A two-lane section between the Porte d'Italie and the Porte d'Orléans
A five-lane section between the Porte de Montreuil and Porte de Bagnolet
A three-lane section between the Porte d'Orléans and the Porte de Sèvres.

The full circuit of the Boulevard Périphérique measures a total of 35.04 kilometres, as measured along the central reservation. The route closely follows the municipal boundaries of Paris. It diverges at three locations; in the sectors of the Bois de Boulogne

Bois de Boulogne

The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine...

and the Bois de Vincennes

Bois de Vincennes

The Bois de Vincennes is a park in the English landscape manner to the east of Paris. The park is named after the nearby town of Vincennes....

(where the roadway is entrenched and covered), and the Heliport of Paris. Because the Boulevard was built over the old Thiers Wall

Thiers wall

, its entrance/exit ramps and interchanges

Interchange (road)

In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...

coincide with the city gates

City Gates

-Track listing:# "Mingus Metamorphosis" 13:20# "Samba For Now" – 8:31# "Thank You Very Much Mr. Monk" – 7:57# "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" – 5:18# "City Gates" – 7:56...

, or "portes" in that wall. The road crosses the River Seine via bridges upstream at Charenton/Bercy and downstream at Saint-Cloud/Issy.

Small distance markers are distributed evenly alongside the roadway:

The 00.0 kilometre point is located over the River Seine, upstream of the Porte de Bercy, at the bridge's expansion joints.
Distance from this point increases in the clockwise direction.
The distance marks on the sign are underlined in red on the inner ring road, and in blue on the outer ring.

The roadway varies in elevation with its surroundings:

50% is elevated above its surroundings, i.e. above grade.
40% is constructed in trench sections, i.e. below grade.
10% is at ground level, i.e. at grade.

The Boulevard Périphérique can carry the heaviest vehicles allowed by French regulations. However, there is a height restriction of 4.75 metres.

Traffic priorities

The Boulevard Périphérique is considered a boulevard, but there are several differences between it and classic Parisian boulevards: the Périphérique is a dual carriageway with on-ramps and off-ramps instead of at-grade junctions. Although it may look like a highway, traffic on the Périphérique are bound by municipal road rules. In particular traffic entering the boulevard have the right-of-way over vehicle traveling on the boulevard, contrary to the usual practice on highways.

The reasons behind this yielding system are poorly understood. However, several factors can explain this decision:

Cultural reason: The "priorité à droite" rule is frequently encountered in Paris and the Paris region. It may have been decided to continue this rule as to not to disturb the Parisians with a priority rule that they were not accustomed to (especially during the conception of the boulevard in the 1960s).
Practical reason: The on/off-ramps are very short as the Périphérique was constructed in a densely populated urban area. By continuing the "priorité à droite" rule it allows shorter ramps and thus less space is consumed as entering traffic are guaranteed to be able to get on the boulevard without spending undue time waiting to merge.
Traffic flow: The Boulevard Périphérique is a very busy road handling amounts of traffic above its design capacity. This means the boulevard is heavily congested (and traffic moves at a slow speed), which makes entering the boulevard from on-ramps difficult without the "priorité à droite" rule and would cause congestion in the area surrounding the on-ramp.

In practice though, entering traffic often merge with circulating traffic under the rules of zip merging. This unwritten rule is also found on other congested roads. There have been efforts in codifying this unwritten rule but no action has been undertaken.

In exception to the French road code the speed limit is 80 km/h on most parts of the boulevard. In addition, there are no shoulder

Shoulder (road)

A hard shoulder, or simply shoulder, is a reserved area by the verge of a road or motorway. Generally it is kept clear of motor vehicle traffic...

on most of the boulevard, which means that accidents can cause considerable disruption to the traffic. Because of this emergency services also have difficulty getting to the scene of the accident. Bicycles are strictly prohibited on the boulevard.

When the boulevard is congested (as it normally is during the day), motorcyclists often use a technique called "back-file" : they move between the cars inner two lanes. This practice has been nicknamed "The way of donors" (to allude to organ donors) to reflect the danger of this practice. It is neither allowed nor prohibited by the French road code. Tolerated in most cases, it is now more severely punished by the law enforcement.

However, fatalities in the Périphérique are rare (none in 2005 as compared to 10 to 15 per year in the 1990s), compared to its large traffic count (50% of Paris traffic). A plausible reason for this is that due to its congestion the traffic moves relatively slowly, and therefore accidents are usually lesser-impact.

Speed control

The Boulevard Périphérique is equipped with speed cameras to enforce the 80 km/h (50 mph) speed limit. The cameras are oriented to photograph the vehicle

Automatic number plate recognition

Automatic number plate recognition is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task...

from behind, and are reportedly installed:

On the inner ring at:

Porte de Sèvres
Porte de Champerret
crossing the Quai d'Ivry, at the end of the bridge
Porte de Bagnolet

On the outer ring at:

Porte de Châtillon
Porte de Clichy
Porte de Pantin
Porte d'Auteuil

In addition, the Boulevard Périphérique's exit ramps are often monitored with hand-held binocular-type radar devices; these are triggered when the 50 km/h (31 mph) exiting limit is exceeded.

Finally, during the rush hour

Rush hour

A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute...

s, radar-equipped

Radar gun

A radar speed gun is a small doppler radar unit used to measure the speed of moving objects, including vehicles, pitched baseballs, runners and other moving objects. Radar speed guns may be hand-held, vehicle-mounted or static...

police vehicles are stationed in hidden areas for spot checks.

Network monitoring and traffic management

About a hundred traffic cameras are installed on the boulevard and are directly connected to the control room of the Périphérique traffic management office. 166 emergency telephones are found every 500 meters along the boulevard (every 250 meters underground) which relay 7,000 calls per year. The emergency phones are all numbered, with odd numbered phones on the outer ring and even numbered phones on the inner ring road.

Eight police vehicles during the day and four at night patrol the boulevard constantly.

750 sensors embedded in the road surface record each passing vehicle. These sensors can measure the flow rate, the occupancy rate and velocity of traffic on a given portion.

Variable-message signs on the boulevard provide information on journey times, which are automatically generated every minute by a computer system using data collected by the sensors. This system provides information on the average journey time to the next major exit. These signs are also used to display general messages such as accident, crash, road closure, road works etc.

Other ring roads

The Boulevard Périphérique is not the only means of bypassing the interior of the French capital:

Within the city boundaries, the Boulevards des Marechaux (Boulevards of the Marshals) encircle Paris at a distance of approximately 100 m from the Périphérique. This is a collection of suburban streets with crossings standards with other streets or tunnels under some major routes of entry and where the speed limit is 50 km/h.
Beyond the city boundaries, the A86
A86 autoroute
A86 is the second ring road around Paris. A86 follows an irregular path around Paris with the distance from the city centre varying from...

(also known as the super-périphérique) encircles Paris at a distance of 5–7 km from the Périphérique.
Approximately 20 km from the Périphérique, another ring road called the Francilienne
Francilienne
The Francilienne is a partial ring road around Île-de-France , France, lying outside the A86.The planned ring is approximately in diameter, similar in size to London's M25 motorway....

is nearing completion.
A further project, the Grand contournement de Paris
Grand contournement de Paris
250px|thumbThe grand contournement de Paris is the fourth ringroad around Paris and is made up of several sections of other motorways ranging from 80 to 200 km distance from Paris....

, is partially constructed.

Sociological impact

The Peripherique has been heavily criticised for its role as a barrier between Paris and the suburbs. Insofar as its route coincides almost entirely with the city limits of Paris, it can be seen as a "frontier", symbolizing a rift in the sociological economic and cultural cooperation between Paris and its suburbs. Suburbanites sometimes feel stigmatized. This psychological barrier is reflected for example in the phrase, "the other side of the ring road", sometimes used to designate the suburbs; this is similar to Londoners referring to the rest of the country (UK) as "outside the M25", or Americans referring to being 'beyond the beltway', meaning the rest of the USA outside Washington.

In recent years, governments have taken into account this negative impact and tried to remedy it: there have been discussions about projects to create green spaces and walkways to re-establish continuity between Paris and its suburbs.

The Boulevard is also a subject of fascination in that it is the busiest in France, and it operates as a closed universe. It has its own service stations, specific points of entry and exit, etc. The road is also considered dangerous to some users, especially drivers of motorcycles and scooters.

List of junctions

Junction number	Junction name	Outer lanes exits	Inner lanes exits
1	Porte de Bercy	A4 A4 autoroute The A4 Autoroute, also known as l'autoroute de l'Est is a French autoroute that travels between the cities of Paris and Strasbourg. It forms parts of European routes E25 and E50....	Quai de Bercy
2	Porte d'Ivry	None	Avenue d'Ivry
3	Porte d' Italie	A6^B A6 autoroute (France) The A6, also known as the Autoroute du Soleil, Sun's Motorway, , is an Autoroute in France, linking Paris to Lyon. The motorway starts at Paris's Porte d'Orléans and Porte d'Italie with two branches, numbered A6a and A6b respectively, that join south of Paris...	Avenue d'Italie
4	Porte de Gentilly	A6^A A6 autoroute (France) The A6, also known as the Autoroute du Soleil, Sun's Motorway, , is an Autoroute in France, linking Paris to Lyon. The motorway starts at Paris's Porte d'Orléans and Porte d'Italie with two branches, numbered A6a and A6b respectively, that join south of Paris...	Rue de l'Amiral Mouchez
5	Porte d'Orléans	Avenue Briand	Avenue de Maine
6	Porte de Châtillon	Avenue P. Brossollette	Avenue Jean Moulin
7	Porte de Vanves	Rue Ernest Reugan	Boulevard Brune
8	Porte Brancion	Rue Jean Bleuzen	Avenue Brancion
9	Porte de la Plaine	Rue Camliant	Place des Insurges de Varsovie
10	Porte de Sèvres	None	Rue Balard
11	Porte de Saint-Cloud	Route de la Reine	Avenue de Versailles
12	Porte Molitor	Boulevard d'Auteuil	Rue Poussin
13	Porte d'Auteuil	A13 A13 autoroute Autoroute 13, or L'Autoroute de Normandie links Paris to Caen, Calvados.The motorway starts in Paris at the Porte d'Auteuil, a former gate of the Paris walls, and ends at Mondeville's Mondeville 2 exchange junction on Caen's ring road...	Rue Poussin
14	Porte de Passy	Rue de l'Hippodrome	Rue de Ranelagh
15	Porte de la Muette	None	Avenue H. Martin
16	Porte Dauphine	Route de Suresnes	Avenue Foch Avenue Foch Avenue Foch is a street in Paris, France, named after Ferdinand Foch in 1929. It was previously named Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. It is one of the most prestigious streets in Paris, and one of the most expensive addresses in the world, home to many grand palaces, including ones belonging to the...
17	Porte Maillot	Avenue Charles De Gaulle	La Défense La Défense La Défense is a major business district of the Paris aire urbaine. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux...
18	Porte de Champerret	Boulevard Bineau	Avenue de Villiers
19	Porte d'Asnières	Rue Victor Hugo	Rue de Tocqueville
20	Porte de Clichy	Boulevard Jean Jaurès	Avenue de Clichy
21	Porte de Saint-Ouen	Avenue G. Péri	Avenue de Saint-Ouen
22	Porte de Clignancourt	Avenue Michelet	Boulevard Ornano
23	Porte de la Chapelle	A1 A1 autoroute (France) The A1 Autoroute, also known as l'autoroute du Nord , is the busiest of France's autoroutes. With a length of , it connects Paris with the northern city of Lille. It is managed by the Société des Autoroutes du Nord et de l'Est de la France...	Rue de la Chapelle
24	Porte d'Aubervilliers	Avenue Victor Hugo Avenue Victor-Hugo (Paris) Avenue Victor-Hugo is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It begins at place Charles de Gaulle and ends at place Tattegrain . It is one of the twelve avenues beginning at the Étoile, and the second longest of the twelve, after the avenue des Champs-Élysées...	Rue d'Aubervilliers
25	Porte de la Villette	Avenue Jean Jaurès	Avenue de Flandre
26	Porte de Pantin	Avenue Jean Lolive	Avenue Jean Jaurès
27	Porte du Pré-Saint-Gervais	Rue G. Péri	Rue Haxo
28	Porte des Lilas	Rue de Paris	Rue de Belleville
29	Porte de Bagnolet	A3 A3 autoroute The A3 Autoroute is a French autoroute located entirely within the départment of Seine-Saint-Denis, serving Montreuil-sous-Bois, Rosny-sous-Bois, and Bondy. Its southern terminus is an interchange with the Boulevard Périphérique at the Porte de Bagnolet, and its northern terminus is an interchange...	Rue Belgrand
30	Porte de Montreuil	Rue de Paris	Rue d'Avron
31	Porte de Vincennes	Avenue de Paris	Cours de Vincennes
32	Porte de Saint-Mandé	Avenue Victor Hugo Avenue Victor-Hugo (Paris) Avenue Victor-Hugo is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It begins at place Charles de Gaulle and ends at place Tattegrain . It is one of the twelve avenues beginning at the Étoile, and the second longest of the twelve, after the avenue des Champs-Élysées...	Avenue de Saint-Mandé
33	Porte Dorée	Rue de Ceinture du Lac Daumesnil	Avenue Daumesnil
34	Porte de Charenton	Avenue de Gravelle	Rue de Charenton

Statistics

Traffic in 2002: between 1.1 and 1.2 million vehicles per day: 89% light vehicles, 7% trucks, 4% motorbikes; 25% of the traffic in Paris.
Average trip: 7 km (4.3 mi)
Average speed on working days (7 h-21 h): 43 km/h (26 mph)
Illegal record speed: 211 km/h for a total duration of 9 minutes and 57 seconds, on a Suzuki GSX-R 1000, November 2005 (link to video).
Speed limit
Speed limit
Road speed limits are used in most countries to regulate the speed of road vehicles. Speed limits may define maximum , minimum or no speed limit and are normally indicated using a traffic sign...

: 80 km/h (50 mph)
Total length: 35.04 km

Other périphériques

The périphérique is the innermost of the Paris four ring road system, including A86

A86 autoroute

A86 is the second ring road around Paris. A86 follows an irregular path around Paris with the distance from the city centre varying from...

(completed in January 2011) and the Francilienne

Francilienne

The Francilienne is a partial ring road around Île-de-France , France, lying outside the A86.The planned ring is approximately in diameter, similar in size to London's M25 motorway....

(partial).

There are other périphériques in France, in Bordeaux, Caen

Périphérique (Caen)

The Boulevard périphérique de Caen is a ring road circling the French city of Caen. It is the route nationale 814.Traveling speed on the road is limited to 90 km/h between the Exit 13 and 8, with a brief portion near the Exit 1 as well as the Viaduc de Calix limited to 70 km/h and...

, la Défense, Dijon, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes and Toulouse, often called rocades.