Le Figaro Bordeaux
For motorists, this is good news: the metropolis of Bordeaux will build a four-storey car park on the right bank of Bordeaux, at the Galin tram stop. A project of "compact parking", which however creates concerns among residents. An information meeting was held on Wednesday to present the ins and outs of this major project.
For several months, anger has been brewing. In its new transport offer, Bordeaux Métropole has unveiled the evolutions of park and ride facilities, designed to allow motorists to drop off their vehicles and then travel by public transport. But the expansion of the Galin park and ride does not really please everyone in the neighborhood. "The existing car park, we support it and we bear the disadvantages, even if it creates a lot of traffic in the neighborhood which is not made for that, because with many small streets," says Francis Gallo, resident of the neighborhood.
The project of a four-storey car park is much less understood. "It makes us jump," says Francis Gallo. "With the creation of the ZFE [low emission zone], the park and ride facilities will serve a bit as a storage area for vehicles that would not be in the standards, but our neighborhood is 4.5 kilometers from the ZFE," says the resident. The choice of this extension therefore seems to him at the very least "surprising". Like many residents, he took part in a petition of the ACPL Bastide (Association for the Conservation and Promotion of Open Spaces), which has so far collected more than 350 signatures, judging that "Bordeaux Métropole displays an ecological discourse but encourages the concreting and penetration of hundreds of additional cars in the heart of the city in Bordeaux".
The Galin Park and Ride currently has 279 parking spaces. Screenshot / Google Streetview
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A project to "limit the footprint"
However, the metropolis defends a well-considered project, on a site "already dedicated to parking and ideally located at the mouth of the boulevard de l'Entre-Deux-Mers (via rue Galin) and potentially at that of the Chaban-Delmas bridge". The development of a college had also reduced the capacity of the car park by 110 places, which previously had 400. The project now envisages a four-storey building, "to limit the footprint", arriving at a total of 600 parking spaces, with 30 spaces dedicated to electric cars, 20 carpooling spaces, ten parking spaces for motorized two-wheelers and 50 secure parking spaces for bicycles, including ten dedicated to charging electric bikes.
In the district, the metropolis wishes to "preserve and enhance an existing wooded fringe" around the building, but also "ventilate the heart of the car park by a patio with trees, in the ground", climbing and perennial plantations on the ground floor and planters on the entire periphery of the third floor. The community also wants to "preserve as many existing trees as possible by transplanting them". In addition to the preservation of 29 lime trees along the car park, 17 would be "potentially transplantable", as well as six plane trees. The project also plans to "renature the site", by removing waterproofing part of the space currently used for parking (42%), to make it a real green space. The cost of the work is currently estimated at around eight million euros. They are expected to run from December 2024 to March 2026.
The current single-storey car park (left) and the project (right). DR / Bordeaux Métropole / BLP & associés
