It is a short section of road that will change the daily life of many Gersois: the bypass of Gimont. He will be inaugurated this Monday afternoon by Prime Minister Jean Castex. A project that has been desired: it had been in the pipeline for more than 30 years.
“It’s very, very noisy”
This bypass is a 9.5 km section of road on 2×2 lanes. It will help relieve congestion in the center of Gimont: the National 124 passes through the middle of the town. Every day, until now, between 8,000 and 10,000 vehicles used it to cross this town of 3,100 inhabitants.
Gimont will therefore be calmer, less polluted. And it was time for Eliette who lives right next door: “It’s very, very noisy. Day and night. You can hardly walk in the city center : there is no quiet path. So, we are very happy that this deviation is coming. »
Five minutes less on a Gimont-Toulouse journey
This bypass will also save time on the journey between Auch and Toulouse, much to Nicolas’ delight: “I come from Toulouse and I often have to cross Gimont to go see my parents, it’s often ‘stuffy at home stuffy’ with the two traffic lights that are right in the middle of the city. I think that with the bypass I could gain ten minutes, even a quarter of an hour. »
– Claudia Calmel
According to forecasts, motorists should shorten their journey by at least five minutes between Gimont and Toulouse.
The end of transient customers?
But some merchants fear a loss of customers, such as Axel, an antique dealer in the city center: ” It will be much more complicated for us who also have a passing clientele : Gimont benefited precisely from the Toulouse-Auch axis, some customers stopped on a whim. This workaround is a great idea for better living. But for businesses, it will take a long time to recover: we will have to reinvent ourselves. »
– Claudia Calmel
New inhabitants in the years to come
But Franck Villeneuve, the Mayor of Gimont, wants to be reassuring: “We must expect a drop in activity for a few months. But soon, when traffic will be easier, the inhabitants of the surrounding municipalities will return. It will start a dynamic. This continuous flow of vehicles brought a lot of noise pollution, pollution and we had a city that was divided in two by the National 124. With this bypass, this border will fall. But it will also make us gain inhabitants: approximately _1500 people in the next twenty years_, according to the figures that have reached us. We are already feeling it with my pressure from developers who are buying a lot of land and with requests for building permits. Gimont will really become a city where life is good. We must therefore organize ourselves to receive this influx of people.
– Claudia Calmel
Real estate agents rubbing their hands
A trend confirmed by real estate agents, such as Nathalie Balzac, director of the Human Immobilier agency in Gimont: “The announcement of this bypass had _an impact on purchase intentions in the sector_, in particular people from the Toulouse conurbation, people who work at Airbus and who want to have direct access to Toulouse. Combined with the Covid effect, it boosted sales. For a year and a half, the market has been doing very well. Everything is sold in Gimont! There are inhabitants, the houses are being renovated. It’s very buoyant.”
– Claudia Calmel
The next stage of the major road developments in the Gers will be the construction of the 2×2 lanes between Gimont and Isle Jourdain. Work could start next year.