After many months of work including a construction stoppage for archaeological excavations, the Savane car park has been open since noon yesterday.
201 places, including 40 for electric vehicles, are offered. Its capacity was ultimately reduced to 201 places, instead of the 270 initially planned, in order to preserve some culturally and aesthetically important trees.
The work cost nearly 5 million euros. This is much more than expected for a more ambitious project. The explanations of Didier Laguerre, the mayor of Fort-de-France.
The cost of construction increased because initially, we were on a redevelopment, a rehabilitation of the parking lot which simply consisted of removing the layer of asphalt and putting another layer back on. We were on a “basic” operation. I made the choice to rather be involved in a development operation which continues the development of the Savane, which allows the creation of a pedestrian stroll along the Avenue des Caraibes, making it possible to connect the Schoelcher library to the Z’apricot footbridge, which leads to the Cruise Terminal, and at the same time to go towards the development of the book square, opposite the Schoelcher library. I also chose to go for a sustainable development of the parking lot with a design which allows not to waterproof as was the case before, but to permeate the ground and therefore to have reserves which collect the water from rain falling on the parking lot. This allows it to diffuse into the gutters more slowly and therefore contribute to the preservation of the city, the protection of the city against flooding.
Free parking until January 1, 2025
This new tool is intended to help revitalize the shopping city center, explains Didier Laguerre.
Pour Andy Marc, operational director at SOAME (Société d’Aménagement et d’Equipement de la Martinique)it is a further step towards the end of illegal parking in the city.
Today, the city is facing an increasingly serious lack of parking. So, SOAME, particularly through its Socanparc sector, is studying parking projects, both on Boulevard Général de Gaulle and at Pointe Simon, to help identify the parking that is present on the road. The idea is that in the long term we will be able to widen the sidewalks a little, making them sidewalks to PMR (People with Reduced Mobility) standards which means that there will be almost no more on-street parking, so it will be necessary to move to dedicated public parking lots.
Due to the end-of-year holidays, parking is exceptionally free for the public until January 1, 2025. It will then cost 2.10 euros per hour to park there.
