theophile

The counter-project is a compromise supported by all members of the Municipality, from all parties. It will finally allow us to move ahead with this long-awaited redevelopment. The initiative, on the other hand, adopts a dogmatic and inflexible stance that will get us nowhere.

The initiative is designed to bring together all the parking facilities in the city center at a single location. Traffic flows will therefore be concentrated at this point, increasing traffic congestion. The counter-project favors a decentralized approach with several smaller structures.

Building a 1,000-space underground parking lot would involve a major worksite over several years, with around 10,000 lorries passing through to excavate the site. Access to the city center would be severely affected. During the works, only 200 surface parking spaces will be maintained on Place d’Armes. The counter-project makes it possible to envisage work with reduced impact.

The initiative’s project is a climatic nonsense. The counter-project takes these issues into account, and aims for reasoned, multimodal mobility. What’s more, it doesn’t rely entirely on underground construction, which has a very high carbon footprint. It opens the way to other types of construction, such as silos, which can be built using sustainable materials (wood).

The counter-project makes it possible to retain a large proportion of the existing trees and add new ones to refresh the downtown area. The construction of a large underground parking lot, on the other hand, would require the felling of trees in the area and prevent the planting of trees in the open ground above the slab.