Urban cable transport is not new in France. That of Brest in Brittany is the first to have been integrated into the public transport network in 2016. Recently, in 2022, it is the city of Toulouse which opened the longest urban cable car in France with its three kilometers, at south of the city.
The mention of a cable car in the Bordeaux metropolis is not recent either. From 2010, at the time of consultation with local residents and residents on the choice of the new crossing of the Garonne, in place of the Simone Veil bridge, the idea was raised. In 2013, it was the mayor of Mérignac, Michel Sainte-Marie, who proposed an aerotram to the airport, on the day of the welding of the first rail of the extension of line A of the tramway. A year later, in June 2014, it was the turn of Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux and president of the Urban Community of Bordeaux (CUB), to suggest a cable car on the boulevards like the skytran project of Tel Aviv in Israel…
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Three proposals which will ultimately not convince.
2018, the return of the cable car
On September 17, 2018, “Sud Ouest” published information according to which the mayor of Bègles and vice-president of Bordeaux Métropole, Clément Rossignol-Puech, and Guillaume Garrigues, elected representative of Talence, proposed to the president of the Métropole, Alain Juppé, the construction of a cable car. Thus, for the Béglais city councilor: “There have been cable cars, and for a long time, in many cities around the world and in many sites, mountains, sea… It is a technique – obviously – perfectly proven, with the presence, in France, from one of the market leaders, the Poma company, born and based in Grenoble. “.
A proposal taken seriously by Alain Juppé who finds it “very interesting”, especially in the context of “Bordeaux 2050” (1), launched the previous February. Two travel options departing from Bègles station are being considered. One towards Latresne (right bank) with a stop at the Rives d'Arcins economic and commercial zone. The other towards Bouliac (right bank) with a stop on the island of Arcins. The expected crossing time would be 12 minutes, making it twice as expensive per kilometer as the tram.
The cable car project presented by Clément Rossignol-Puech and Guillaume Garrigues in 2018.
South West Infographic
The idea thus gained ground and on January 23, 2019, thirteen metropolitan elected officials, including many mayors, spent the day in Brest in Finistère to discover the cable car, its integration into the city and its transport plan.
It will be Bordeaux north
In 2020, a first opportunity study was carried out on three possible paths for the installation of a cable car: between Bouliac and Bègles (station), between Lormont (Buttinière) and Bordeaux (Achard), finally between Bassens (Puy- Pelat) and Bordeaux (Grand Stade). It is the Bordeaux-Bacalan/Buttinière-Palmer route to Lormont and Cenon which is ultimately chosen, the cost/frequency ratio being more advantageous. The following year, a second study shifted the latter further south and proposed six possible routes with a travel time of seventeen minutes to cross from one bank to the other. An intermediate station is also planned on the right bank between Lormont and Cenon.
During 2022, additional studies are carried out in anticipation of public consultation. Two major changes emerge: nine variants of the route instead of six are put forward and an anchor point (without passenger stops) would be shifted to the north of the Lissandre district to avoid flying over the Bordeaux Naval Construction sites ( CNB) and Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits (MBWS).
South West Infographic
November 28, 2022 is therefore the launch of the public consultation which submits, among other things, the nine routes, the choice of technology (single cable or 3S (two traction cables and a carrier cable)) and that of the cable cars. At the same time, from December 13, 2022 to February 13, 2023, an exhibition on the project is visible at the Ecocitizen House of Bordeaux.
Unesco and the opposition, unfavorable to the project
At the end of June 2023, elected officials from Bordeaux Métropole must examine the project, the public consultation during the winter of 2022-2023 having collected “on the whole” a greater number of favorable opinions than unfavorable ones. But this examination was ultimately postponed. Indeed, during the consultation phase, the Bordeaux Unesco club issued an unfavorable opinion and in July, the Bordeaux municipal council rejected it almost unanimously. To summarize: he is not popular.
Cable car project in Bordeaux: our file
Like several metropolises in France, such as Brest or Toulouse, the idea of cable transport has been gaining ground in Bordeaux for five years. In the Gironde capital, a public consultation on a 2 km cable car will take place this first half of 2022
In September 2024, the Unesco-Icomos advisory mission, which came in June “to assess the impact of the three families of routes”, also issued an unfavorable opinion, arguing that they posed problems with regard to the label awarded to Bordeaux in 2007. A month later, the two opposition groups in the Bordeaux Métropole council demanded a definitive halt to the project, following the financial effort requested from the communities by the Government to straighten out the public accounts.
Transport by cable cars is therefore not close to seeing the light of day in the Bordeaux metropolitan area, even if Bordeaux Métropole has decided to continue technical studies.
(1) Consultation whose mission is to bring out priorities for the city of tomorrow
