Le Figaro Nantes
In Nantes, the "pedestrian strategy" supported by the municipality continues to unfold. Four new areas of the sixth largest city of France will be transformed into a pedestrian area. In total, about twenty streets are concerned. An evolution that will take place gradually. First step: from the end of June, the bridge of Saint-Mihiel, which spans the Erdre, will be closed to vehicles. The structure had already been the subject of a similar experiment - contested due to a significant transfer of road traffic in ancillary areas - at the time of the first confinement against Covid-19.
The test was stopped in February 2021 and traffic reopened in one direction of traffic. At that time, the City justified its decision by noting a "longer travel time" for motorists. Two and a half years later, the situation is changing again. "We want to give this space back to pedestrians and bicycles definitively," explains Simon Citeau, deputy in charge of soft travel, without dwelling on the reasons for this choice. The second stage of the extension of pedestrian areas will take place in 2024 in the areas of the City Hall and the Quai de Versailles. Then, this strategy will end in 2025 with the addition of the zones around the cathedral and the Joffre district. "This represents eight additional hectares returned to pedestrians," quantifies the elected official.
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Developing walking
These spaces will not be sanctuarized and will remain accessible to vehicles via terminals "for rights holders". Still, the place of the car will further recede as the municipality wishes. "Our goal is to make walking the first mode of travel by 2030," explains Simon Citeau. According to him, the momentum is already underway: "The latest figures for mobility in Nantes indicate that the use of the car is decreasing, that that of public transport is stagnating while walking and cycling are increasing." A reality visible in the city center and the many bike lanes that converge there.
Another major development to come: a limited traffic zone - like the one that exists on the course of 50 hostages - which restricts access only to buses, deliverers, taxis and residents will be set up in the streets Henri IV, Georges Clemenceau and Élie Delaunay in March 2025. It will extend for about "one kilometer" in total. "This will make it possible to secure the surroundings of the Museum of Arts and absorb the postponement of some bus lines whose route will be modified by pedestrian areas," reports the elected official. It remains to be seen whether these areas, not closed by a terminal, will be respected? "On the course of the 50 hostages, there is a good rate of respect. It is about 80-90%," says Simon Citeau. Traffic has reportedly increased from 12,000 vehicles per day to about 4000,<> today, including a thousand buses.
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'Lack of consultation'
All these projects announced by the City must be the subject of public consultations. They will take place from June 12 to July 21. A calendar and a method that the elected opposition Julien Bainvel regrets with the Figaro: "Organizing this in the middle of the summer raises questions about the level of participation. Above all, it is too late since the project is already validated. The member of the mobility commission at the town hall, who says he is "in favor of reducing the place of the car in the city", deplores the "lack of consultation upstream with residents and inhabitants" on the subject.
Lambasting a "lack of coherence" about the strategy of the municipality which "has not planned to increase the offer of public transport at the beginning of the school year" despite the influx of new inhabitants, he also points to the "way" in which the decision was taken for the closure of the Saint-Mihiel bridge to cars: "They have not taken any new measures to correct the defects found two years ago."
