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The ranking fell like a chopper last month: the Bordeaux metropolis would now be the second most congested agglomeration in France, behind Paris.
Despite the rise of public transport and cycling, this place on the podium reveals that car traffic remains problematic in the vicinity of Bordeaux.
One of the most visible consequences is the regular congestion of the ring road, which the metropolis intends to combat.
While the work to create 2x3 lanes on the ring road, financed by the State and the metropolis, should soon be completed, the sea serpent of Bordeaux traffic jams is still far from being solved.
"
All Girondins are concerned today, not just metropolitan residents
", laments Alain Anziani, mayor of Mérignac and president of Bordeaux Métropole, citing those who work in the agglomeration, come there for treatment or have to cross it to longer trips.
The metropolis having the desire "
to be in solidarity with all these Girondins
", it is asking the State for new road developments, to redirect heavy goods vehicles.
"
The ring road combines different types of traffic
", details Alain Anziani on Tuesday.
In addition to local traffic and exchange traffic, it is in particular international transit traffic that is in the sights of the elected socialist.
Of the 120,000 to 240,000 vehicles passing through the ring road daily, he estimates that around 15% are heavy goods vehicles, an average of 26,000 vehicles per day.
In addition to the fact that they take up much more space than a car, "
half of these heavy goods vehicles have no local activity
", supports the elected official.
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The return of the “great bypass”
The stated objective of the elected official is to "
respond to the fed up of people
", by reducing the number of trucks.
“
On the regulation of heavy goods vehicles, we have tried everything
”, regrets Alain Anziani, who wanted toll modulation for these vehicles from February 2023. A measure postponed
sine die
.
"
The carriers have stepped up to the plate and the state told us that it was not a good solution
", specifies the socialist, who is therefore awaiting new arrangements.
Among the tracks considered, the creation of a motorway bar between the A62 and the A89, in order to redirect traffic from Spain to the east.
It is the return of a “ big bypass
” project
, but which does not yet say its name.
A request already put on the table in 2016 by Alain Juppé, former mayor of Bordeaux.
"
We need a link between the south and the northeast that does not go through Bordeaux
“, insists Alain Anziani today, without advancing on this or that concrete proposal, leaving the State to decide.
The elected representative, however, cites the examples of the metropolises of Strasbourg and Rouen, the first having installed a large bypass and the other being in the process of doing so.
Two projects fiercely fought, in particular by local ecologists, because of the destruction of natural or agricultural areas to install these new peri-urban highways.
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“An archaic vision of development”
In the Bordeaux metropolis, environmentalists are no exception.
Clément Rossignol Puech, mayor of Bègles and third vice-president of Bordeaux Métropole in charge of alternative mobility, believes that "the
answer to the saturation of the ring road is not in the umpteenth return of the great Bordeaux motorway bypass (even more trucks in the surrounding territories, pollution, artificialisation), but in rail freight and carpooling
”.
In early March, ecologists in the Gironde also came out against the idea of a major road bypass, linking Langon and Mussidan.
For them, "
this old project, which aims to create an additional highway by artificialising thousands of hectares in the south-east of Gironde, reflects an archaic vision of land use planning policy"
.
The mayor of Langon is also opposed to this development which would overload his municipality.
Although ecologists and socialists are allied with Bordeaux Métropole, Alain Anziani wants to be balanced, judging that “
every project today is the subject of a dispute, on one side as on the other
”.
