Line A of the tramway in Mérignac -

Mickaël Bosredon / 20 Minutes

  • Major work in the Mérignac Soleil area will start on January 25 and severely disrupt the sector.

  • The commissioning of the extension of line A to the airport is expected in September 2022.

  • This extension does not mark the end of tramway projects in Bordeaux, assure the elected officials of the metropolis, but they wish to favor more the bus with a high level of service.

"Now we are attacking the tough."

The president of Bordeaux metropolis and mayor of Mérignac, Alain Anziani (PS), presented this Wednesday the phase of work which will start next Monday, which will consist of extending line A of the tramway to Bordeaux-Mérignac airport.

For a year, network work had already been carried out in the sector.

But from January 25, “we will start setting up the platform, before laying the rails.

»A whole other site.

There will be about a year of heavy work, before the testing phase, and commissioning hoped for in September 2022, even if Alain Anziani prefers to mention “autumn 2022.”

"Significant impacts on bus traffic"

This extension, which had been decided under the previous majority of Bordeaux metropolis led by Alain Juppé, will start from the Quatre Chemins station in Mérignac.

One branch will continue to Mérignac-Center, and another will run on a single track towards the airport.

Over 5 km this extension will serve five new stations, where the trams will cross, one of which will stop in front of the Mérignac Soleil shopping center.

It aims to link Place Pey-Berland to Bordeaux, to the airport, in thirty-five minutes.

Deputy Mayor Gérard Chausset, warns that from March, “all sectors will be under construction and there will be significant impacts on bus traffic.

»Liane 1 will keep its current route, but the other lines will be diverted.

"The other critical point will be that of the work this summer, since they will consist of the" disconnection "of line A, which will last two months.

»The tram line will be interrupted at Quatre Chemins, or even a little earlier, and there will be a substitute service to the center of Mérignac.

Cycling equipment

This project is "a large-scale structure for the whole city," insisted Alain Anziani.

It does not serve only the airport, but a whole pool of 30,000 jobs and a commercial area.

It is accompanied by a high-performance bus line (BNSP) between Le Haillan-Rostand and Pessac-Bersol, which has already been running since the end of 2019 but which will benefit from a separate lane.

»A pedestrian path and cycling equipment will also be created along the extension.

“We are in a secure cycle site on most of the route, except from the ring road and throughout the airport area, where we will be in a 1.80 m wide cycle lane,” explains Gérard Chausset.

“There is also the concern of revegetation, continues the mayor of Mérignac, because the tram must be a green flow.

A total of 2,668 trees are going to be planted, but over the entire Marne-Soleil urban project, the idea is to plant 10,000 trees over the next few years.

Unfortunately, this will not prevent us from having to cut 267 trees, for safety reasons.

"

Estimates are based on an attendance of 6,500 travelers per day on the 5 km extension, mainly from car traffic.

This would represent 3,000 to 5,000 fewer cars over the entire area.

The president of the metropolis is however convinced "that we will go further than that".

"The end of the tramway"

“This is an ambitious project of 90 million euros, which shows that we are not against the tram, nor against the airport,” insists Clément Rossignol-Puech, EELV vice-president in charge of mobility, and mayor of Bègles.

While other cities, including Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, are also awaiting extensions of tram lines, the question of whether this extension will be the last in the city, is on everyone's lips.

“Our mobility plan will be adopted between July and September, and we will put all of this on the table,” recalls Alain Anziani.

We cannot say that it will be the end of the tram, but what is certain is that it is the end of the whole tram.

We cannot continue at our own pace, since today we have the second most extensive network in France with around 100 kilometers.

And the larger the network, the more threatened you are by outages.

"

Clément Rossignol-Puech, for his part, believes that “the tram is not necessarily the right means of transport for all areas of the city, it can also be the bus with a high level of service.

"But he assures us that the extension to the airport," will not be the last tram extension in the city: there will probably be others, in the near future, or less near.

"

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