A new traffic plan came into effect on Monday June 27 in Montpellier in the city center. Avenue Clémenceau is closed to traffic (work on line 5 of the tram is starting there, only the tram and bicycles will pass there in the future.
In addition, the Comédie tunnel is closed, only access to the 1200 parking spaces of the Comédie and the Triangle is authorized. Some little clever or dazed have risked it despite everything on Monday, while being able to cross the parking lot and come out immediately while benefiting from the 10 minutes of free. The town hall had planned everything. Those who are just passing through must pay 3 euros. What quickly deter transit vehicles.
All this therefore deserved some clarifications that the city hastened to make this Tuesday in a press release.
– The transit function is removed.
– The car park entrance barriers have been moved to Boulevard Victor Hugo, the exit barriers have been moved to Rue Michelet.
– Taking a ticket at the entrance barriers implies the application of the rate in force in the car park.
– To discourage misuse of the Comédie car park/tunnel (transit function), a rate of €3.00 applies when the ticket is taken.
– The rate of €3.00 applies for the 1st quarter of an hour, beyond the 16th minute the rate becomes normal again (1.60 per half hour) so as not to penalize users who use the car park of Comedy to park.
– The €3.00 rate also applies to vehicles using the Sarrail entrance to reach the tunnel directly without parking in the car park.
“It is important to remember that this principle has been successfully applied between 2014 and June 27, 2022 in the Gambetta car park to prevent motorists from using the car park as a “shunt” between Plan Cabanes and Place Saint Denis. Users who took a ticket at the Plan Cabanes entrance had to pay the parking rate at the Saint Denis exit.
The special case of emergency vehicles
Emergency vehicles havea dedicated lane in the tunnel and passage through barriers is automated by license plate recognition by access control systems.
In the event that user vehicles are likely to slow down the passage of emergency vehicles at the entrance barrier or the exit barriers, the procedure applied by the car park consists of opening the barriers to accelerate the passage of vehicles emergency (same principle as at a red light).
In practice, the Comédie car park tunnel operates on the principle of a regulated lane, access to which is prohibited for vehicles except for users of the Triangle and Comédie car parks and the emergency services.