Traffic: is the future western bypass of Toulouse relevant?
The request issued by the “Axe vert de La Ramée” collective against the urban boulevard of the Saint-Martory canal and the western urban boulevard has already recorded 4,000 signatures.
There is the Arc-en-Ciel ring road, which was initially intended to relieve traffic from the Toulouse ring road, to the west of the agglomeration. But for Toulouse Métropole and the department of Haute-Garonne, the option is no longer enough to drain traffic and ever denser commuting in a sector which concentrates large industrial activities including aeronautics and Airbus. Hence the project for a new road network BUCSM (urban boulevard of the St-Martory canal) and BUO (western urban boulevard) which should undergo 24 km of new roads. Except that the prospect does not please everyone. About fifteen ecological associations gathered in the collective Ax vert de La Ramée vigorously denounce an achievement which would destroy 52 hectares of natural and agricultural spaces and would cost 276 million euros.
Sacrificed vegetation and heat islands…
“An outdated, useless and required concept which would sacrifice the little nature that remained in the first Toulouse crown”, protests the collective which drives the point home. “Creating car vacuum cleaners would sustainably increase road traffic by replacing vegetation with asphalt and contributing to the multiplication of urban heat islands, while global warming would precisely require the preservation of vegetal and cool areas”. For the time being, the departmental council of Haute-Garonne has obtained the agreement of the mayors of Tournefeuille, Cugnaux and Villeneuve-Tolosane to carry out the first section of the BUCSM, the bypass of St-Simon. “Which already threatens 9 hectares of vegetation, including hundreds of trees, on the edge of La Ramée park”, underlines the collective. While regretting the “opacity” of the technical studies in progress, while environmental studies will soon be produced by Toulouse Métropole. For environmental activists, it is necessary, on the contrary, “to act and drastically” on greenhouse gas emissions.
An increase in traffic
“As a bonus, they explain, pressures on energy and material prices and high inflation will cause the costs of road projects to explode, they warn. And new infrastructure, such as these urban boulevards, can generate an increase in traffic beyond the usual traffic patterns”. That is an average increase of 10% in motorized vehicles in the short term and 20% in the longer term. “The priority is the development of cycling and pedestrian infrastructures and public transport, pleads the collective Ax vert de La Ramée. It is an emergency for the Toulouse conurbation”. To date, the petition he has generated against the community project has gathered more than 4,000 signatures.