“It will be done”: the project for a new bridge over the Gardon, in Alès, is facing difficulties and has been delayed

Un nouveau pont en vue à Alès pour, notamment, améliorer les conditions de circulation sur les quais. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

Announced several years ago, it is also part of another, broader ambition, called the Agglo Road File (DVA). The first deputy mayor and president of the agglomeration community, Christophe Rivenq, says that this bridge project could be launched during the next municipal term.

This ambition was put on the table during Max Roustan's campaign for the last municipal elections: the creation of a new bridge over the Gardon, in Alès. According to his first deputy Christophe Rivenq, also president of the Agglomeration, this project, which looks like a campaign promise, in particular to balance traffic on the quays on both banks of the river to and from the ring road during rush hour, is not buried. “It's very simple. Studies have been conducted”, he said, referring to those undertaken by the Infrastructure Hub four years ago. “The location where to build it is very difficult to determine.” Various sites have nevertheless been considered: on the Mas-d'Hours quay, at Carrefour (ex-Cora), towards the Pont-Vieux, from the Gibertine roundabout to the Prairie sports complex, “but it's curved and wider”, etc.

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“A delay of two to three years” is predicted

Not to mention issues related to the water law. “There are millions of things!”, laments the mayor's right-hand man. “We're not ready to have a permit and a location that pleases everyone…”Local authorities and the State, therefore. In addition, there is a complex national financial context and the consequences of the Covid crisis, which lead Christophe Rivenq to expect “a delay of two to three years”. That is to say, a launch of said project during the next term of office, while adding that it will see the light of day, “whatever happens”. He says: “If tomorrow the government manages to remove the standards and says “Do as you wish and in the location you want”, we'll do it!”

A population growth in sight

The president of Alès Agglo insists that “it will happen”. All the more so since this ambition is part of a more global logic, that of the Agglo Roads File (DVA). “One of the challenges we will also have is knowing what to do with the ring road with the growth in population and traffic”, he said, also putting the Saint-Christol-lez-Alès bypass program in the basket. “We are sizing our projects for a future population of 50,000 inhabitants in Alès (compared to 45,000 today) and 150,000 in the territory of the Agglomeration (compared to approximately 138,170 to date) in the medium term.”

The future of Pont-Neuf still in question

Returning to the case of the new Alès bridge, Christophe Rivenq is adamant: “It is not abandoned. It has to improve living conditions and fluidity, otherwise, we wouldn't do it…” And this even implies a possible, even inevitable, demolition of the Pont-Neuf, “because its inverted beams form a curtain and had even caused the flooding of the Tempéras in 2002. Which has been demonstrated“, explains the elected official from Alès. “The water was hitting it and coming back up.”

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