Large canal park in Toulouse: fewer cars, more greenery
The metropolitan project aims to create a green lung around the three canals irrigating Toulouse and three towns to the north, Fenouillet, Lespinasse and Saint-Jory. With reduction of car traffic along the banks. The Brienne Saint-Pierre forecourt in Toulouse, delivered first, in 2025.
There are two ways of seeing the urban project of Grand Parc Canal presented this Friday, January 13 by François Chollet, vice-president of the metropolis in charge of ecology. A project which intends to enhance the 30 km of three canals (from the South, lateral to the Garonne and from Brienne) irrigating four municipalities: Toulouse, Lespinasse, Fenouillet and Saint-Jory.
The Brienne Saint-Pierre forecourt in 2025
The pessimistic option consists in applying this urban project to the recorded realization of a single sustainable project in the current municipal mandate, namely the development of the Brienne Saint-Pierre forecourt, the work of which should begin in 2024 for delivery in 2025 ( and a cost of 9.4 million euros). This is the part of the Brienne canal located between the new Toulouse School of Economics business school and the Saint-Pierre lock. The rest of the project, then summing up to great intentions on the reduction of the place of the car, the renaturation and the revegetation of the banks of the canals, promises in the longer term, only temporary test facilities being planned during this municipal mandate.
A long-term project
The optimistic version will be based on the proposals of François Chollet: “We are moving into the operational phase after 18 months of work with the teams of the renowned landscape architect Jacqueline Osty (Grand Prix de l’urbanisme 2020, Grand Prix du paysage 2018 and 2005 ) and VNF (Voies Navigables de France, channel manager, editor’s note). This is a metropolitan project that will be spread over several mandates, with a dual urban and heritage dimension and a nature-urbanity conjunction”.
50% reduction in car traffic by 2030
Proposals from residents, residents or not, consulted upstream, four main lines guide the plan presented in September by Jacqueline Osty to the mayor and president of the metropolis, Jean-Luc Moudenc, who approved it: reduction of car traffic on along the canals, “by half by 2030 for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists”, according to François Chollet; more nature (with new species of trees: hackberries in Brienne, and various types of oaks elsewhere, which will be added to the 3,396 existing trees, according to Jacqueline Osty); mix of uses and audiences (with temporary play facilities, benches, rest and leisure areas, such as the Minimes hoppers, which will eventually be made available to pedestrians and cyclists; a collaborative project, i.e. subject to consultation.
Eight temporary developments by 2025
Thus, in addition to the guide plan drawn up by the landscaper Jacqueline Osty “for long-term consistency”, eight sites are subject to transitional developments, following the proposals of the inhabitants, delivered between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 (at a cost of 2 million euros) in order to bring these areas to life: Port de l’Embouchure/Filtres basin, Minimes hoppers, Port Saint-Sauveur, dry docks, Fenouillet lock, Bocage lake at Fenouillet, Lespinasse lock and place called La Pignole (!) in Saint-Jory. It’s up to you to see if the (green?) glass is half empty or full.
The “pearls” of VNF finally valued?
Voies Navigables de France (VNF), public manager of the canals, shares project management with Toulouse Métropole. The administration is in charge of three major heritage sites: the port of the Mouth and the basin of the Filtres, around the Ponts-Jumeaux, the port of Saint-Sauveur with its castle and the 1830 pavilion housing the archives of the Canal du Midi since its drilling, and finally the dry dock, at the Demoiselles bridge, a magnificent site where barges are repaired. “VNF is working with the Philippe Prost architectural firm to enhance these three sites, linked together by canals, in order to give a modern setting to these technical sites and open them up to the outside”, declares Henri Bouyssès, regional director for the south -west of VNF. Previous projects, which gave too much space to real estate, have been suspended, according to VNF.