Retro 2024. The Arlésienne of the southwest bypass of Cherbourg has been a busy year

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” The southwest ring road should not see the light of day within 10 to 20 years »: it’s in… 1992that this sentence appeared in a newspaper. 32 years later, we are still far from the groundbreaking.

Yet, fin 2021 Manche, Cotentin, Normandy and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin had launched the pre-consultation process, announcing a 2×1 lane road with overtaking slotset limited to 90 km/h .

How and where?

More the projectcontinues to be debated. If almost no one denies the difficultieswe still have to agree on the solutions to be undertaken .

The “pros” and the “antis” answer each other tit for tat by interposed press releases as they clashed during the three public meetings organized at the spring 2024as part of the prior consultation.

The bypass route, currently, is La Longue Chasse (RD122). Today, it’s 8,500 vehicles per day.

A few days before the closing of the consultation the City of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin was particularly opposed to the construction of a viaduct 450 meters long which would span the Quincampoix valleyand which she considers a project from the past .

On Friday, December 13, during the session of the Department of Manche, by 42 votes for, 9 against and 3 abstentions, the departmental advisors decided to continue studies on two of the six zones proposed to the west of the Quincampoix valley : the SO3 zone (which connects Le Bondet in Nouainville to the Bénécère economic activity zone in Équeurdreville-Hainneville) and the SO5 zone which would consist of securing the RD64 (from Bondet to the Pelles crossroads) and the RD22 to Sainte-Croix-Hague.

The public inquiry at the end of 2027?

These are the elected officials of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin who oppose the project as it stands, provoking incomprehension by Jean Morin, president of the Department: “By dint of going backwards, constantly postponing, we will move towards abandonment”.

Karine Duval, departmental and municipal councilor of Cherbourg, defends the position of his group of the social and environmental left by saying “for bypasses”, in order to “secure and streamline traffic to the south-west of Cherbourg, at Martinvast and the axis linking La Hague” but by doing it in the most intelligent way possible.

Jean-Marc Frigout, departmental and municipal councilor of La Hague, abstained because, according to him, “the emergency is the security of the D22 and the D56. »

Even more so in view colossal prospects development plans for the Orano La Hague factory announced at the start of 2024.

The public inquiry is considered fin 2027 in order to obtain the environmental authorizations and one declaration of public utility courant 2028before, perhaps, a project lasting several years.

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