Toulouse: the anti-noise radar has been installed and is currently being tested on rue Louis Plana
Since this Tuesday, February 8, the long rue Louis Plana in Toulouse has been equipped with a noise radar. This tool perched at the end of a mast is currently being tested and could be a means of combating noise pollution.
Electric scooters, buses, scooters, delivery trucks… Rue Louis Plana in Toulouse, in the Roseraie district, an artery almost 3 kilometers long sees an incessant stream of vehicles of all kinds pass by all day long. At the end of 2021, this street was sadly classified as one of the noisiest streets in Toulouse by Cerema (Center for studies and expertise on risks, the environment, mobility, planning). And it is not in the middle of the day that we will be able to contradict this observation. A constant hubbub reigns supreme, making the daily lives of residents hellish. “It’s mostly at night, it’s the jungle. The scooters, those who have fun doing rear wheels or testing the engine power of their cars”, annoys Jacques, 78 years old including 46 years at live in the neighborhood.
So when an experiment with a noise radar was proposed to the town hall of Toulouse, the municipality proposed this street to place the radar. “Several parameters were taken into account, different streets were proposed and this is the one that was chosen”, specifies the municipality. On Tuesday, February 8, the mast and the white radar took up position at the start of rue Louis Plana near the Roseraie post office, a few steps from the Casino supermarket.
Two or three months of testing
The tool is equipped with a camera and a sound level meter that will record the sound level of passing vehicles. “This is an experiment, there are no verbalizations. The objective is to collect data and to approve this radar. In particular, it must link the right noise to the right vehicle”, specifies the Capitol. . At the end of these two or three months of field tests, the radar will be dismantled. It will then be necessary to wait for the publication of a ministerial decree. This text will aim to determine for each category of vehicles the noise level which will be the subject of a verbalization. A second phase of experimentation will then be introduced, this time to check the correct relay between the radar and the center for processing this information. “In total, this test phase should last a maximum of two years”, further indicates the town hall. Toulouse by an amendment to the LOM law (orientation and mobility law) passed in 2019 is one of the cities selected by the government to test these tools with Paris, Nantes, Bron, Nice, Rueil-Malmaison, Villeneuve-le-Roi , Saint-Lambert and Saint-Forget.
Since its installation, the inhabitants of the district have not really noticed the presence of the device. “I did not see the difference, after it is as always, for road users if we do not punish nothing happens”, slips a retiree who returns from her daily shopping. She deplores in particular the excessive speed of those who take this street. Same story for this resident of the neighborhood instead of picking up her grandchildren after school. And no sooner does she begin to recount her infernal noise-related daily life than she is overtaken by two young men on scooters driving at high speed on the rear wheel.