Seeing heavy goods vehicles on the elegant but very narrow Cabouillet bridge is part of everyday life in downtown L'Isle-Adam (Val-d'Oise).
For those who are new to the scene, the spectacle is stressful as the 16th century work is not calibrated to accommodate such machines.
And it is not uncommon to see city police rushing to guide trucks stuck in the middle of cars.
"When a truck is blocked there, it completely disrupts traffic and has repercussions on three municipalities", annoys the mayor (LR) of the town, Sébastien Poniatowski, alluding to the traffic jams that then form on Parmain, from the other side of the Oise and as far as Champagne-sur-Oise.
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If the case of this historic monument bridge is emblematic, it actually reveals a problem that affects the entire sector with sometimes less spectacular effects but just as harmful.
"Taking measures in a single municipality would not solve anything," said Sébastien Poniatowski.
It is for this reason that the elected official joined forces with three colleagues - the mayors of Parmain, Champagne-sur-Oise and Mériel - to issue a decree prohibiting the traffic of heavy goods vehicles (excluding delivery).
The joint text has just been signed and the panels put up in early July.
The aim of this initiative: to ban completely from town centers the trucks that leave the RN184 and the A16 and use these towns as relief routes.
Torn mirrors and traffic jams
Today, they would be between 300 and 600 per day to circulate in these municipalities.
"It is often the GPS that guide them here", deplore the mayors, who hope that their concerted decision will have a real effect.
Especially since the idea is emulated, the town near Nesles-la-Vallée planning to follow the same path.
The territory concerned by the decree being large, the objective is to block the trucks as soon as they pass on the A16 or the national highway. Signage must also be placed directly on these axes in order to dissuade drivers from taking these exits. Mériel, for example, which sees many heavy goods vehicles leaving the RN184 to pour into its city center, expects a lot from this decree. "The school in the center is at the edge of the departmental, children must cross to go to the canteen," explains the mayor (SE), Jérôme François. It would be a real relief if there were less heavy weights. "
In L'Isle-Adam, trucks are not only the source of traffic jams but they also cause damage.
"Street furniture suffers a lot, we see leaning fires", notes Morgan Touboul, deputy mayor in charge of the living environment.
In Champagne-sur-Oise, there are frequently signs on the ground.
"In our city center, we frequently have damage to parked cars," observes the mayor (SE) of Parmain, Loïc Taillanter.
The other day, a truck blew up all the mirrors in the row of vehicles parked on rue du Maréchal-Foch.
"
A fight fought across the whole of Ile-de-France
However, it will remain to enforce this ban.
In the Yvelines, several mayors have thus called for reinforced controls in the hope that their decrees will have a stronger impact.
This is the case with Chanteloup-les-Vignes recently, which followed the example of Triel-sur-Seine.
In Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Val-de-Marne), a decree banning the streets of the city for heavy goods vehicles weighing more than 19 tonnes in transit has also just been taken by the mayor.
The city is thus pursuing its objective of "peaceful city" after having imposed the maximum 30 km / h on all vehicles and in all streets since February.
Other municipalities, on the other hand, do not see the end of the tunnel.
In Melun (Seine-et-Marne) in particular, despite several attempts, no elected representative has succeeded in banning heavy goods vehicles from Avenue Thiers, the State opposing such a measure on this departmental.
What the law allows
In general, goods transport vehicles with a total authorized laden weight of more than 7.5 tonnes are not allowed to travel on the entire road network on weekends and public holidays.
On certain sections of motorways in the Ile-de-France region, the following additional traffic bans are added to the general rule.
For example, in the Paris-province direction, trucks are not allowed to drive on Fridays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Inside Paris, there are even more drastic rules, deliveries and loading are only authorized from 10 p.m. to 5 p.m. for vehicles of less than 29 m² in area, and only from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. for vehicles with a surface area of 43 m² or less.
Failure to comply with the permanent ban on access to certain roads for certain categories of vehicles is an offense punishable by a fine of 750 euros for a natural person or 3,750 euros for a legal person.