AAt the foot of the transporter bridge, the unrest has reached the Martrou district. For four months, residents on the left bank of the Charente have been protesting against a new direction of car traffic.
Today united in a collective “Living safely in Martrou”, the inhabitants of the hamlet discovered, in a letter dated February 26 signed by the mayor Claude Maugan, that the two streets of Martrou and du Bac will be made one-way at the beginning of March. To admire the iron giant, motorists must go down the rue de Martrou then go back up the rue du Bac. A last road that will be redeveloped by the Agglo as part of the requalification of the areas around the ferry.
A new configuration justified by the mayor by the concern “to reinforce the safety of users” whereas until now the rue du Bac was two-way, as was the majority of the narrow rue de Martrou mainly used by locals.
The expected increase in traffic worries the residents: beyond the lack of prior consultation that they deplore, they believe that the street in this hamlet is not suitable for such a flow of traffic (1). Not to mention that half a dozen of them can no longer enter or exit their garage.
David BRIAND
Access to the site is unclear, with the car park of the old lifting bridge on the left and rue de Martrou on the right.
Steps
Furthermore, the one-way designation of Rue du Bac is apparently not respected with “lost tourists who do not understand the incomprehensible signage such as this prohibited direction applicable 300 meters further”, sigh Guillaume Savouré, Claudine and Christophe Martin, Lionel Ischard, spokespersons for the collective which launched a petition and claims 49 signatures (“95% of residents concerned”). And to wonder about the road insecurity resulting from cars which continue to go down the main road or which make acrobatic U-turns.
The multiple steps taken by the collective (meetings with the mayor, the president of Caro, the deputy Christophe Plassard, letters to the sub-prefect and prefect) were unsuccessful. Hervé Blanché replied to them that the direction of traffic was a municipal matter under the mayor’s police powers.
At the beginning of May, Claude Maugan told them to “take into account and study the possible scenarios” before indicating in a letter dated May 28 that he would not be able to restore rue de Martrou to two-way traffic for regulatory reasons.
There remains this other proposal from the collective, which does not say it is “refractory to changes”: “keep rue du Bac in two directions with the presence of a traffic priority at the narrowest point of the road”. Claude Maugan talks about “continuing the experiment all summer” before taking stock. He is also banking heavily on new signage, which “has fallen behind schedule”, which will be able to “relieve visitors to the parking lot of the old lifting span bridge”. In the meantime, he also specifies that he has only received “four individual requests” from local residents experiencing problems.
(1) A third of visitors arrive via Échillais and two thirds via Rochefort.
