In January 2023, almost two years ago, the government officially awarded the development and management of 360 km of national roads to the Occitanie Region, which had positioned itself to ensure these missions on several routes. An initiative resulting from the 3DS law passed in 2022, and authorizing experiments such as this transfer of skills, from the State to the regional community. The transfer will ultimately not take place. Explanations.
The project covered, in Occitanie, the A68, the RN 20, 22, 320, 125 and almost the entire RN88. The connection between Ariège and Andorra was thus primarily concerned. Acknowledged objective of the president of the Region Carole Delga: “In the Pyrenees, we will be able to carry out a global and coordinated project for the development of RN125 and RN20essential routes both for everyday mobility and for tourist flows and links with Spain or Andorra. The Region’s joint management of these two roads will allow us to optimize and pool the resources mobilized, for example on the Foix and Saint-Béat tunnels. On the RN125 in Haute-Garonne, there is also real consistency with the future reopening of the Montréjeau-Luchon train line financed by the Region. We will thus be able to continue the development of these two infrastructures in a complementary manner.” With, clearly, the ambition to do faster and better than the managing State: “The Region was already heavily involved in financing the work on these routes. But in reality, the State’s action turned out to be too slow and sometimes unsuitable for expectations because it was too far removed from local issues.added Ms. Delga in a press release dated January 6, 2023.
But in recent days, in the territories concerned, rumors have been growing that the Region is making an about-face on these transfers. A first confirmation appeared this December 17, in the mouth of the president of the Departmental Council of Lozère: according to local media (the Radio Totem newspaper here), Laurent Suau explained to the Departmental Assembly that he had been informed the day before by Carole Delga of this unexpected decision. Finally, Wednesday December 18, during a press conference ahead of the vote on the regional budget, Carole Delga confirmed the information: “the State has given no assurance regarding its planned funding of 50% in the CPER, which represents a financial risk of more than €80 million for the Region by 2028, explains the president. Too great a risk! The implementation modalities as well as the context of budgetary uncertainties lead the Region to abandon this experiment”.
But the uncertainties relating to the dispute still in progress, relating to the landslide which occurred… 11 years ago (!) in Arabaux, very close to the viaduct serving the northern entrance to the Foix tunnel, also weighed in the choice of Ms. Delga to renounce the transfer. An event linked to the construction of the structure (read below): the debris from the drilling of the northern Foix tunnel (used by the N20) ended up causing a landslide. For the president of the Occitanie Region, there is no question of taking the risk of having to pay for a project carried out by the State more than 25 years ago…
A. C.
Between Foix and Arabaux, 10 years later… The end of the tunnel for RD n°1?
In January 2014, the RD1 east of Foix, known as the “Herm route”, suffered a major landslide caused by severe bad weather. Since then, the axis has experienced a narrowing of almost 100 meters which some point out as dangerous. But the situation could finally change.
Article published in the Gazette Ariégeoise on July 10, 2024
In January 2014, the RD1 between Foix and Arabaux was affected by a landslide. The restriction put in place has lasted for more than ten years…
The Graoussette location, in the shadow of the northern flank of Pech de Foix, is well known to hunters – it is there that the federation trains its members, particularly license candidates. It was in this sector that when the Foix tunnel was drilled in the 1990s, large quantities of materials from the work were deposited. Weakened by significant rainfall in 2012 and 2013, the stability of the whole finally gave way in January 2014: a movement of land came to “overflow” onto the D1 which links Foix to Laroque d’Olmes, and which is necessary for inhabitants of Herm, Pradières and Arabaux. After some clearing work, a temporary arrangement was put in place, in the form of a narrowing with priority for traffic coming from the east.
From ? Nothing left, or almost. It is true that for several years, legal proceedings opposed the departmental council and the Hunters’ Federation, on the one hand, and the State services, on the other hand, as to responsibility for the case. In its judgment of May 4, 2021, the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal noted that “the excess spoil from the digging of the tunnel and the Foix diversion carried out from 1997 to 1999 was stored on a naturally unstable slope and subject to creeping phenomena by saturation of the colluvium following internal circulation of water and during sustained rainfall episodes. The expert (…) noted that the very low compactness of these excavated materials testifies to the fact that they were simply dumped, without having previously been compacted, the topsoil having not been removed and no redan having been carried out . The significant rainfall in 2012 and 2013 and the storms at the beginning of 2014 led to saturation of the massif and the development of pore pressures which, according to the expert, were the triggering factor for the landslide in question. .
The land mass is, however, subject to monitoring, since piezometers and inclinometers have been installed there. At the end of 2019, a visit to the Herm of the prefectural services raised hopes that “the studies followed by the necessary work would be undertaken by DIRSO”as local elected officials recalled in an article posted on the municipality’s website in April… 2021. More than ten years later, the issue was still on the menu of the visit carried out by the prefect of Ariège Simon Bertoux in the canton of Val d’Ariège last spring. In the process, on June 30, 2024, the prefect issued an order giving a first signal: agents of the Interdepartmental Roads Directorate and companies operating on behalf of the State are authorized to enter private plots affected by the subject, “until the end of the studies planned for the end of 2025”. Studies which consist of topographic additions, the survey of sensors already in place and the installation of new measuring instruments, as well as pressuremeter surveys and corings. This first step will undoubtedly make it possible to determine the extent of the work and the time horizon for resolving this problem.
A. C.
