Before the establishment of the Low Emission Mobility Zone, Nîmes accelerates its air quality measures

La Ville adhère à Atmo Occitanie pour mieux mesurer la pollution liée au trafic routier. Archive MIKAËL ANISSET

Elected officials voted in favor of the City of Nîmes joining Atmo Occitanie in order to better measure air pollution. A preview of the implementation of the Low Emission Mobility Zone in early 2025.

The deliberation seemed somewhat innocuous this Saturday, February 10, in the morning, at the Nîmes municipal council with this vote on the City's membership in Atmo Occitanie, a partnership of a duration of three from January 1, 2024 which will allow better monitoring of air quality.

In fact, the City would like Atmo Occitanie to be able to carry out study and monitoring missions as part of the next Low Emission Mobility Zone (ZFE) applied to Nîmes from January 1, 2025, might as well say tomorrow. This is valid for all metropolitan areas with more than 150,000 inhabitants which do not reach the regulatory air quality values ​​recommended by the World Health Organization.

And in this matter, it is appropriate to accelerate awareness because this will happen quickly, very quickly with the implementation of Crit'air 1 to 5 depending on your vehicle. In neighboring Montpellier, this year, it is already the means of transport of Crit'air 4 which are likely to no longer circulate within a given perimeter. These are those with diesel engines in circulation before 2006 and those with gasoline engines before 1997. There is no control until next August .

It is perhaps by drawing inspiration from this flexibility that Nîmes will initially apply its ZFE. In any case, during the council, the elected left-wing opposition Corine Giacometti expressed the questions of many motorists from Nîmes and elsewhere: "This will impact the lives of residents, especially those who cannot change cars because they lack the means. What will be the level of consultation with the population ?"

Claude de Girardi, district assistant, delegated to Mobility, Traffic and Parking, made it clear that this system would be validated by the end of the year by the City and Agglo Nîmes Métropole: "The social risk is the restriction of movement but we will be light-handed. It is up to us to ensure that everyone can adapt to these constraints, a common sense measure applied at the national level. We're not late."

In the event of non-compliance with what is imposed by the ZFE, road users may be fined 68 € from 2025.

60% of vehicles in Crit'air 1 and 2

Questioned a few months ago about the preparation of the future ZFE of Nîmes, Claude de Girardi had specified that 60% of the vehicles were already in Crit'air 1 and 2. Among the files to be process: the scope to be defined, the amount of financial aid to purchase or rent an electric vehicle, the pace of deployment of the various criteria.

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