It was by means of a letter received in their electronic mailbox on Christmas eve, on December 23, followed by a second on Monday, that the Toulouse elected officials learned of their summons to a surprise municipal council on the 8th. February with only one item on the agenda, the 3rd metro line. This flagship project of 2.7 billion €, launched in 2014, entered a decisive year with the start of work at the end of 2022 for commissioning at the end of 2028. In this final stretch before the first groundbreaking, the It is time for the environmental public inquiry, open on December 15 until January 28, with a view to a final administrative green light. The investigating commissioners, then the prefect, must say whether the measures intended to reduce the impact on biodiversity of this 27 km long line, from Colomiers to Labège, are sufficient.
It is in this context that the elected officials of Toulouse express themselves, like those of the other municipalities concerned: Colomiers, Blagnac, Labège and the agglomeration community of Sicoval. “Local communities have the opportunity to give their opinion,” says Jean-Michel Lattes, deputy mayor and president of Tisséo Collectivités. And this even if the public inquiry will be closed for a few days at the meeting of the Toulouse city council.
The stage will have the value of political confirmation. According to our information, the State would have liked such a passage through the municipal assemblies.

The battle of the metro

Concretely, the environmental survey aims to measure the environmental impact of the construction of the line to check whether it is as limited as possible and whether the compensation is up to the task. The investigation file, which can be viewed on the internet in particular, examines three aspects: water regulations, exemptions from the ban on the destruction of protected species (fauna and flora), and the special authorization required for a protected site. like the Canal du Midi.
Surprised by this convocation, the two opposition groups no doubt expressed themselves on the details of these measures. But it is the project as a whole that they are already questioning on this occasion. Antoine Maurice (EELV), who chairs the group of the Greens, denounces the desire of Jean-Luc Moudenc “to lock himself in this distant project, long and reflect which prevents thinking in the short term”. And, as during the municipal campaign, he opposes it with “an emergency plan” based on Lineas and an extension of the tram.
For the municipalist group, Maxime Le Texier judges that “Tisséo’s figures on the environmental impact are largely underestimated”. He sees this as the reason for the position of the European Bank, which granted a loan for the Mobility Plan as a whole and not for the 3rd line. Not registered, the elected socialist Vincent Gibert also wants “a real emergency plan for transport” in the short term.
Before the elected officials, in September 2021, a collective of associations led by Deux Pieds Deux Roues, which pleads for a surface network, had questioned a “3rd line supposedly ecological (which) is not really: the breakthrough tunnels, extraction, concrete will generate 880,000 tonnes of CO2 ”. Conversely, Tisséo insists: “the 3rd line will save 250,000 km of polluting journeys per day, ie a saving of nearly 28,700 tonnes of greenhouse gases over one year. The battle for the 3rd line, and the metro, continues.