Toulouse: rue d’Alsace-Lorraine, commercial lung, second most attractive artery in France
The survey by Mytraffic and the Institut des Hautes Etudes des Métropoles places rue d’Alsace-Lorraine in Toulouse in second position among the most sought-after and most attractive streets in France.
Lille, Nantes, Strasbourg, Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Nice, Marseilles and Toulouse. It is the top 10 selected by Mytraffic and the Institut des Hautes Etudes des Métropoles (IHEDM) who measured in their survey published, Thursday, May 19, “the places of growth and attractiveness, places of sharing and solidarity of eighty French metropolises.
Toulouse takes second place from the top, behind Bordeaux and its rue Sainte-Catherine. The 22 largest metropolises, including Paris, concentrate more than 50% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and have 25 million inhabitants. Which says a lot about the environmental impact.
Who has more world abilities?
The study seeks above all to show “the districts and cities that have succeeded in succeeding the most people” in 2021, a year still marked by the pandemic.
But on the basis of a single criterion, ensure Mytraffic: “The density of attendance, ie the number of pedestrian crossings in a shopping area, related to its surface. To establish this list, we measured, using mobile technologies, the flow of pedestrians in city centers hour by hour, throughout the year 2021 in more than 80 districts of French metropolises (excluding Paris).
The Work of Urbain Maguès
The street of Alsace-Lorraine? Toulouse’s most famous artery in the city, indisputably. A veritable lung of the Pink City (one km long and sixteen meters wide), it was opened between 1869 and 1873 on the basis of plans by the chief engineer of the Ponts et chaussées of the time, Urbain Maguès.
He is the author of the plan of the Haussmannian breakthroughs in Toulouse, the “longitudinal and transverse streets”, such as the rue d’Alsace-Lorraine but also the rue de Metz whose current renovation joins the original project.
“The rue d’Alsace-Lorraine is the pulse of Toulouse,” says the deputy mayor of Toulouse, delegate for trade and economic life, Olivier Arsac. When Rue d’Alsace-Lorraine is busy, you can be sure the city is too. Of course we are satisfied with this ranking. »
Several indicators
Several indicators caught the attention of the investigators of this national ranking. The study notes “a recently renovated city. Between 2010 and 2012, the urban break raised by the rue d’Alsace-Lorraine was requalified to make it a peaceful place for strolling. Sidewalks as well as cars have been removed from the street, now fully pedestrianized.
The survey shows that the street offers “a diversified and dense commercial offer. The street welcomes both independents, especially textiles, and “mass-market” brands that play their role as economic locomotives. And the bars-restaurants that easily attract locals and tourists alike. The only absentees: the services”. Note that the study only takes into account the part of rue d’Alsace between Place Jeanne d’Arc and Square Charles-de-Gaulle.