Lyon's school street programme triggers inclusive public spaces

Since 2020, the city and Metropole of Lyon have jointly implemented their school street programme “rue des enfants” to create safe, green and inclusive school areas. The programme redesigns streets in a co-creation process, with pupils of primary and secondary schools employing measures such as traffic calming, greening solutions and providing more space for pedestrians. 

Today, more than 60 projects have been introduced, involving approximately 15,000 pupils. Twenty two of the sites have been fully pedestrianised, while others have changed the design of the streets to include shared zones (employing 20 km/h speed limits and one-way streets). The projects install green structures and use surface designs such as frescos to accommodate people in the first instance, instead of traffic.

The school street projects have also led to more complex transformations, such as the case of the Danton district. Starting with a school street transformation in rue Léon Jouhaux, the redesign extended to the main square, turning it into a shared space. The new square was then equipped with greeneries, permeable surfaces and trees, and welcomes residents and active transport users as a priority.

From 2022, Lyon also employed a 30 km/h speed limit policy across the whole city area. The trigger for this was the rising accident figures experienced between 2014 and 2019. However, a recent evaluation for the period 2019 – 2023 has since shown that accident figures have decreased by 35% in the city and 21% in the metropolitan area, thanks to the introduction of this speed limit.