Rouens. A lifting bridge that (almost) never rises: the Flaubert work, a financial heresy?
By Valentin Lebosse
Published on
It is an emblematic work of Rouen (Seine-Maritime). With its two piers culminating at 86 meters, the Flaubert Bridge is the third tallest building in the Norman capital, behind the spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral (151 meters) and the Archives tower (89 meters, 104 including the antenna). This made it the highest lift bridge in the world when it was inaugurated in 2008.
A veritable gem of engineering, its 32 motors drive winches which pull on cables to sensitively lift the two decks, 120 meters long and 1,300 tonnes each, raising them from 7 to 55 meters in height in around ten minutes (i.e. a speed of 4.2 meters per minute).
Only “2 to 4 lifts” per year for boats
This system thus allows the passage of large-scale boats, such as sailboats or cruise ships. When the Flaubert bridge was built, we were counting on around forty franchises per year, report Paris Normandy, in a September 2018 article for the tenth anniversary of the building.
It is clear that today we are very far from the mark. Bad tongues will say that the bridge only rises for Armada sailboats (six lifts during the last edition, in 2019). The figures communicated to us by the prefecture of Seine-Maritime show “2 to 4 liftings […], corresponding to round-trip passages of 1 to 2 ships” per year. In addition, “each of the two decks is distinctly lifted a total of 4 times a year”, for maintenance operations. That is a total of 10 to 12 annual lifts.
Each of these operations is a delight for walkers and photographers. A fortiori when it comes to the passage of a famous three-master like French, stopover in the port of Rouen from December 31, 2021 to February 4, 2022. More classy ocean liners that have long anchored directly above the Guillaume-le-Conquérant bridge? Before the pandemic, around fifty rose each year in the Norman capital. 14 are expected in 2022, according to Haropa Port. A priori, none will approach so close to the city center.
The reluctance of cruise passengers
This is the paradox of the Flaubert bridge: designed to let these giants of the seas pass, its ingenious mechanism has not convinced cruise passengers. Quite the contrary. After delivery of the structure, the Port of Rouen maintained the terminal temporarily set up downstream of the bridge, on the Saint-Gervais peninsula.
“The State had specified the procedure for obtaining an ascent/descent from the bridge (namely giving notice and not doing so during peak traffic hours in the morning and evening). The port of Rouen judged that these constraints were penal for the cruise activity”, explains Haropa Port.
The public establishment also adds based on its decision on the opinion of the pilots of the Seine, “quite mixed on the passage of cruise ships between the piles of the bridge, because of the curvature” [du fleuve] in this location “. All this “convinced the port not to return to the old cruise terminal (in front of the construction site of the future hangar 105)”.
Today vice-president of the Armada in charge of communication, Philippe Chastre was the chief of staff ofYvon-Robert when the former socialist mayor of Rouen (1995-2001 and 2012-2020) obtained the unanimous vote of his municipal majority in favor of a drawbridge, at the end of the 1990s. He points to an about-face cruise passengers:
When choosing, cruise passengers never said that a lift bridge bothered them. It was once the decision was made that they started to think about it and they came back to see the mayor to ask for a new terminal.
“They had fantasized about a dockers’ strike which had prevented the lifting of the bridge. But basically, it’s also a financial issue,” adds Philippe Chastres. Each outward or return night passage is thus billed nearly 15,000 euros.
Bordeaux’s little brother
Opened to traffic in March 2013, the Jacques-Chaban-Delmas bridge, in Bordeaux (Gironde), is in a way the little brother of the Flaubert bridge. Indeed, the engineer who designed it, Michel Virlogeux, also worked on the Rouen structure and previously on the Normandy bridge.
The dimensions of its deck (117 meters) and its pylons (77 meters) are slightly smaller than those of the Flaubert bridge. Another difference: its four piles frame a single apron. This can rise 55 meters above the Garonne, at the same height as the decks of the Flaubert bridge above the Seine.
The cost of the Girondin structure (150 million euros) is relatively close to that of its big brother in Normandy, while the value of its maintenance contract is much higher: 1,161 million euros. On the other hand, the cost of a lift is much less expensive than in Rouen: €3,000 for a weekday and daytime maneuver, €6,000 for a night and/or weekend/holiday maneuver.
Above all, the Chaban-Delmas bridge sees boats pass much more often: 28 ships in 2021, almost half of which are ocean liners, according to figures transmitted by Bordeaux Métropole. In 2017 and 2019, more than 70 boats passed under its apron.
Because contrary to what happened in Rouen, the cruise terminal remained upstream of the bridge. “The construction of the Bordeaux lift bridge should not modify the system of stopovers in the port of the Moon, which is the case”, let Bordeaux Métropole know.
A lifting system at 43.5 million euros
Lack of anticipation by the public authorities or inconstancy of cruise passengers, remains the bill for the site, which amounts to 155 million euros, including 43.5 million euros for the lifting system alone (civil engineering, mechanisms, safety equipment , Control Tower). An amount shared between the State (27%), the Department (35%) then carried out by Charles Revet (RPR), “the rest distributed being between the Haute-Normandie region led by the left and the community of the Rouen conurbation chaired by Laurent Fabius”, wrote France-Evening, in 2011. Invoice to which is added an annual maintenance cost of 700,000 euros, on average.
However, Yvon Robert does not express “no regret”. “There was a need for an additional crossing to divert car traffic and trucks that cluttered the quays on the right and left banks”, resituates the former city councilor. But the decision was delayed, for lack of consensus between the decision-makers. “When I became chief of staff to the mayor in 1995, we had been talking about the sixth crossing for 10 years,” recalls Philippe Chastres.
lift bridge vs tunnel
At first, two options clashed: a fixed bridge or a tunnel. However, the success of the first and then the second edition of the Armada, in 1989 and 1994, changed the game. “A fixed bridge was the death of the Armada”, slice Philippe Chastres.
Defended by the right-wing municipal opposition, “a tunnel would have cost more than a bridge in any case”, assures Yvon Robert. Not to mention the trauma injured in 1999 by the fire in the Mont-Blanc tunnel, the result of a truck accident. The mayor of Rouen has therefore “proposed with Laurent Fabius a lifting bridge, to allow the passage of ocean liners and maintain the Armada”. A solution that was also favored by engineers, assures Philippe Chastres. For a “relative” additional cost, judge Yvon Robert, of the order of “25%” compared to a fixed bridge.
Twenty years later, “the bridge has become an emblem of Rouen, a gateway to the city, it’s still more pleasant to cross than a tunnel of several kilometers”, defends the former mayor of Rouen. In 2020 alone, a year marked by two confinements, the Flaubert bridge allowed, according to the prefecture, an average of 44,000 vehicles per day, including 11% of heavy goods vehicles, thus contributing to relieving congestion on the axes and bridges of the center- Town.
“A barrier between the port and the city”
Another story from Paul Astolfi. Opposition municipal councilor under the first mandate of Yvon Robert, the former cultural assistant of Jean Lecanuet deplores, behind “the totem of modernity”, “a minimalist solution” in the way of thinking about the development of western districts of Rouen, the port and the connection between the two banks of the Seine.
Paul Astolfi regrets that “instead of weaving a link between the city and the port, the bridge has put a barrier between the two”. Like the cruise terminal which, in its former location, allows travelers to see the cathedral but now overlooks grain silos. “It’s something a little shameful, not tenable for a ferry terminal that wants to position itself on high-end cruises. »
The connection with the Sud III is long overdue
The former opposition municipal councilor also deplores that “in the absence of consultation between local authorities (the City, the Agglomeration, the Department and the Region, Editor’s note) to say to the State, ‘this is what we want’, the State was only halfway there, by not providing for the connection of the motorways”.
Indeed, the direct link between the A150 and the A13 via the Sud III is still waiting, almost 14 years after the opening of the Flaubert bridge to traffic. “With a length of 1.1 km”, the connection between the bridge and the RN338 will be “entirely made up of complex engineering structures”, indicates the prefecture.
However, their realization had to wait for road improvements in the future Flaubert district. What makes Paul Astolfi wince: “How did you want to think of the connection with the South III when you did not know what you were going to put underneath? It would have been better to build the Flaubert district and the bridge afterwards. »
On the side of the prefecture, we assure that things are progressing: “The main works contract for the operation relating to engineering structures and technical backfilling was awarded at the end of 2021. The preparation period will be scheduled soon for a start of work in the summer of 2022.” The commissioning of this road project is scheduled “by the end of 2025”.
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