five figures to understand this motorway project between Toulouse and Castres, contested by environmental associations and scientists

While figures for the quantity of materials used for the entire project are not known, the Atosca dealer reports that “500,000 tonnes of asphalt produced using two plants temporarily installed on the site” will be mobilized to cover the roadway.

In the newspaper Release elected officials, personalities, NGOs and scientists deplore “ millions of tonnes of aggregates which will have to be drawn and returned in the next ten years.” In Ariège, where many deposits are located, the water table is already suffering the direct consequences of this extractivism. they write a column.

8,000 The number of light vehicles expected each day

The Atosca company hopes that “8,000 light vehicles per day on average, and nearly 900 heavy goods vehicles”will use this section of motorway when it comes into service in 2025. “We denounce this project because it is incompatible with the trajectory of reducing greenhouse gas emissions necessary to achieve France’s climate objectives”, denounces Christophe Cassou. The climatologist is among the signatories of a forum in The Obs who believe that the A69 constitutes “one of those projects that had to be abandoned”.

While transport emits the most greenhouse gases in the Occitanie region, according to the Regional Energy and Climate Agency, with 43% of emissions in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, this motorway project promises to increase the bill. “We estimated that, if we kept the same traffic between Toulouse and Castres, but at 130 km/h instead of 90 and 110, there would be between 5,000 and 8,000 additional tonnes of CO2 emitted per year”explains geologist Odin Marc, research fellow at the CNRS.

“In the total balance of CO2 emissions, these are small values, but the priority should be to reduce emissions, and not to build infrastructure which will increase them.”

Odin Marc, geologist

at franceinfo

15 to 25 The number of minutes saved to make Castres-Toulouse

According to the prefecture of the Occitanie region the A69 must allow “a significant time saving (25 minutes on average) over the entire journey between the exit of the A68 motorway and the entrance to the Castres ring road”. The objective is thus to “open up and support the economic development of the Castres-Mazamet basin”praises the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing (Dreal) of Occitanie.

For this car journey, opponents of the project estimate that it would save 15 minutes. “For those who can pay, because for others, who will take the national road, the improvements will lengthen their journey”, deplores Alexis Boniface, co-president of the National Tree Monitoring Group (GNSA). Because the concessionaire announced that the price of the A69 would be 6.77 euros one way and 13.54 euros round trip.

“To encourage people to change vehicles, each owner who drives on the motorway with a low-emission vehicle will immediately have a 20% reduction in tolls”Atosca defends himself. For the prefecture, the train did not constitute a satisfactory alternative: “The comparison between rail and road on the Castres-Toulouse route is unfavorable to the rail mode from the point of view of travel time (1 hour 15 minutes on average by train, compared to 50 to 54 minutes on average by car).”

300 The number of hectares over which the A69 will extend

In its opinion on the A69, the Environmental Authority, which depends on the General Inspectorate for Sustainable Development, writes: “This road project, initiated several decades ago, appears anachronistic in view of the current challenges and ambitions of sobriety, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and air pollution, of stopping the erosion of biodiversity and the artificialization of the territory and the evolution of mobility practices and their links with territorial planning.” This project will in fact be spread over 300 hectares of land, including “100 hectares will be artificialized to create the roads”, describes Atosca. For their part, opponents speak of “360 artificialized hectares of destroyed land”.

Concerning the felled trees, the subject at the heart of the protest, Atosca reports that 13 hectares of various afforestation (trees, hedges, groves, etc.) will be affected by the project. Among them, “260 alignment trees” of which “trees of varying ages and heritage interest (from 5 years to more than 60 years) including around fifty plane trees affected by colored canker disease for some”. “The street trees are those planted near the roads. We also count those near the fields. In total, there are a thousand trees felled, not counting the hedges and shrubs”responds Alexis Boniface, co-president of the GNSA.

Faced with this impact on the environment, Atosca and the State respond that they will compensate for this destruction. “Fifty-five hectares of wetlands will be recreated, compared to 20 hectares impacted”describes the concessionaire, and 25 hectares of trees must be replanted, “that’s five times more”, according to the same source. But compensation can’t equal ecosystem losses, scientists say . “We are in hindsight today on compensation policies. And they do not at all meet the initial commitments” comments Christophe Cassou, who denounces “the illusion of copying the living”.

“A simply accounting approach to living things makes no sense because living things are inherently dynamic and in interaction with the environments that surround them.”

Christophe Cassou, climatologist

at franceinfo

“Its damage is irreversible and the first thing to do in environmental and climate policies is to do no harm”continues the climatologist.

5 The number of legal actions to contest the project

Several appeals have been launched against the construction of the highway. “Each time, the administrative court ruled in favor of the State”, responds the Occitanie prefecture, contacted by franceinfo. Other non-suspensive actions have still not been completed. “There are five legal proceedings in progress, three appeals before the administrative jurisdiction and two criminal complaints”explains Alice Terrasse, the lawyer for La Voie est libre.

The first concerns the widening of the A680, part of the project: “We are contesting before the Council of State the legality of the concession of the project to the motorways of the South of France, because it was not submitted to the Transport Regulatory Authority”, explains the lawyer. The association also attacked the two environmental authorizations granted to the A680 developments as well as the A69 project.

“On both cases, we contest the overriding reason of major public interest, as well as the lack of search for alternative solutions.”

Alice Terrasse, lawyer for The Way is Free

at franceinfo

Two cases which will not be judged “before a year or a year and a half with the administrative court of Toulouse”.

Alice Terrasse also filed a complaint for non-compliance: the “destruction of 260 road alignment trees, most of them centuries old, without authorization” and the absence of an inventory of a wetland by Atosca before the start of the work, denounced by the prefecture in a formal notice dated October 6. “How can we compensate for the height, when we destroy a site without carrying out a prior inventory?” asks Alice Terrasse. The opponents are now considering bringing the debate to the inadequacy of French law to the challenges of fighting global warming, for this type of project, points out the lawyer.