What will rue Christophe-Columbus look like in Tours? This was the question posed on April 22, 2025, in the Anatole-France room, at the Town Hall, to the residents of this path which links Boulevard Richard-Wagner to Avenue du Général-de-Gaulle, passing by the Beaujardin and Sanitas districts.
About sixty people had gathered to exchange with Christophe Boulanger, municipal councilor delegated to the traffic and parking plan. The latter came to present several proposals from the City of Tours to modify the traffic plan of rue Christophe-Colomb.
More than 4,500 vehicles per day under the railway bridge
It all started with a petition for residents of the southern part of the street in 2022, who complained about the dangerousness of their path. According to Christophe Boulanger and the counting of the city, the street, however narrow (8 m from facade facade in the southern part) sees more than 2,300 vehicles in the south-north direction, at the level of the rail tunnel. A figure which even rises to more than 4,500 vehicles, all sense combined, since motorists try to avoid the crossroads of Verdun and the avenue de Grammont.
Two options were presented to the residents: one offers a one-way of the rue du Nord to the south of the railway bridge, up to the streets of Algiers and Beaujardin, while the other offers the creation of two unique-head-headlines south of the bridge (North-South between rue d’Alger and rue Charles-Gounod and Sud-Nord between Boulevard Richard-Wagner and Charles-Gounod).
-A petition circulates
Options that have not convinced the inhabitants, far from it. A petition has already collected more than 500 physical signatures and more than 160 online when writing these lines. In the room, residents and signatories of the petition informed the municipal councilor their opposition to these proposals. Among the arguments mentioned by the authors of the petition, we thus find “A risk of transferring traffic to other streets”or “A biased consultation”.
Neither of the city’s two proposals came out of this meeting. Especially since for some residents, the problem lies more in speed (a factor also noted by the city of Tours) than in the number of vehicles that take rue Christophe-Colomb.
For their part, the inhabitants expressed their proposals. Among the tracks mentioned, the president of the Beaujardin district council plans to install Stop panels or the ban on bicycles in the wrong againstresses, while trying to find a solution so that incoming and outgoing trucks The New Republic May circulate safely.
Bastien David, with Cor. NR: Nadine LEGAVRE
