Plans to transform Paris’s Champs-Élysées into an “extraordinary garden” have given fresh impetus to a similar proposal for Floriana, which has been on the shelf since 2014.

The €250 million makeover of the iconic avenue in France’s capital has shown that the St Anne Street project – the brainchild of four architects – can really come to life.

Its promoters cannot understand why Malta can never be the first to come up with an avant-garde project, pointing out that, unfortunately, it all boils down to a lack of vision.

The project proposes the removal of vehicular traffic from the avenue by creating an underground tunnel.

If Paris can pedestrianise 1.9 kilometres of its main junction into green spaces and reduce traffic by half, why cannot Malta turn a 400-metre strip into a pedestrian garden, the group of architects wondered.

Lead architect Ian Camilleri, who conceived the idea after working in Floriana for years, said Champs-Élysées “is going to beat us to it”.

But although Malta may have been pipped to the post by Paris, the green-lighted project has also renewed hope in the possibility of transforming Floriana into the garden city it was originally built to be.

“We will never stop pushing. There are only positives from the project even from an economic point of view,” Camilleri said.

Floriana’s green urban pro­ject was floated by Camilleri and fellow architects Adam Brincat, Anna Gallo and Bernard Vella from DHI Periti, based in Floriana, seven years ago, with the aim to convert St Anne Street, the main artery in and out of Valletta, into an attractive hub by addressing the heavy congestion and pollution generated in the town.

It proposes the removal of vehicular traffic from the avenue by creating an underground tunnel that would free the surface for landscaping to create a recreational area.

The regeneration of the busy road into a public green area through a sustainable approach that would improve traffic circulation around Floriana builds on government policies and can be a trendsetter for other localities, the architects maintained.

It would inject new social life into Floriana, while contributing to its economic growth and value, enhancing the experience, spurring the regeneration of the existing buildings and creating another tourist centre.

A 2016 report also makes a case for the project’s health benefits, linked to green space regardless of socio-economic status.

There are only positives from the project even from an economic point of view

A green city improves urban life, the report highlights, with people likely to exercise more and a reduction in anti-social behaviour and crime. It can also help meet the challenges of climate change.

Although “great interest” was shown in the project when it was presented to Environment, Climate Change and Planning Minister Aaron Farrugia last March, “unfortunately, there has been no movement since,” the architects noted.

Meanwhile, feedback over the years has been nothing but positive, they said, about what they described as “an upgrade for the country” on the lines of Cospicua’s Dock 1 project, considered to be a perfect local case study of how an urban project for a dilapidated area can stimulate the social regeneration of its surroundings.

“We have to convince the government. It needs to realise the benefits of this project and we would need its commitment.

“On our part, we are convinced that the project can form part of the government’s vision for the regeneration of the harbour and the southern areas.”

Last year, Infrastructure Malta had said the proposal to turn St Anne Street into a garden could be considered as a future investment in the Maltese road network, but it had prioritised other projects that need to be completed by 2025.

The authority had said it considered and supported all urban greening proposals by individuals, local councils and other organisations, especially when located in densely built-up areas.

In the case of Floriana proposal, cars would drive down into the tunnel at the Lion Fountain and re-emerge just before the roundabout leading to Valletta, while Pope John Paul II Square would also be embellished.

The architects are working on new visuals to showcase the proposed activity under the arches of St Anne Street. But, otherwise, the project that has been left on the backburner is raring to go.

Meanwhile, in Paris, one of the world’s most beautiful avenues – an eight-lane highway used by an average of 3,000 vehicles an hour – will see space for cars halved, with tunnels of trees to improve air quality.

Architect Philippe Chiambaretta, whose firm PCA-Stream drew up the makeover plans, was quoted in The Guardian as saying the Champs-Élysées had become a place that summed up the problems faced by cities around the world – “pollution, the place of the car, tourism and consumerism” – and needed to be redeveloped to be “ecological, desirable and inclusive”.