Back, are traffic jams worse than before the pandemic?
It is almost the only one chosen who could make us regret the confinements. Those tens of wasted minutes, standing still, bumper to bumper, on the ring road. “It’s worse than before the Covid, right? “. Are these words about the coffee machine a reflection of reality or an unconscious interpretation of former teleworkers who are less tolerant of traffic jams? A bit of both. According to
traffic data aggregated by the operator Tom Tom, thanks to the GPS of mobile phones in particular, the average congestion at rush hour in Toulouse, that is to say the lengthening of the usual travel time, was 68% this month. This is less than the 75% of September 2019, but it is a level that has not been reached since the winter of 2109-2020 and things are getting worse quickly.
This Thursday morning, at 8 am, the degradation index was 82%, 10% more than an equivalent Thursday in 2019, without being able to blame it on the rain. And since Monday, traffic congestion during the morning rush hours has regularly exceeded that of September 2019. “As in other large cities in France, we are in Toulouse to catch up with the standards of the bad weeks of 2019”, Vincent analyzes Martinier, Marketing Director of Tom Tom. Even with a new 2 X 3 lane ring road section. “The good habits taken are being lost, it is the return of the old demons”, adds the specialist. And it is all the more unfortunate that in the spring, unlike Marseille, Paris or Lyon, the Pink City was “on a virtuous curve”, well below the traffic jams before Covid-19.
A recovery much faster than expected in public transport
The services of Jean-Michel Lattes, vice-president of Toulouse metropolis in charge of mobility, also noted the increase in car traffic curves in this return. But the chosen one sees the glass half full. “This reflects a return of Toulouse to a better economic situation,” he said. The one who is also president of Tisséo Collectivités is all the more delighted as he notes “a resumption of all-round travel”. “There are more cars, but also bicycles and users in public transport, underlines Jean-Michel Lattes. We issued as many Pastel cards this fall as in September 2019 and while we did not expect to find the record traffic of 2019 on the Tisséo network before 2023, we now estimate that we will be able to reach it as early as December ”.
Beyond commuting, there are also signs that the appetite for small and large outings is returning. Last Friday evening, traffic congestion was downright 100% at the exits of Toulouse, an extreme rate not reached for a long time and witnessing a huge wave of weekend departures. Intra-muros, three weeks after the extension of metro hours until 3 a.m. on Thursday, night-time attendance has already increased from 5,000 to 7,000 users.