Make Toulouse more breathable, especially for the 8,000 inhabitants who, along the dense axes, incur risks to their health. This is the objective of the now famous
Low Emission Zone (ZFE) that the Mobility Orientation Law (LOM) of 2019 requires to be put in place to gradually drive the most polluting vehicles out of the Pink City.
The cause is great, so Toulouse Métropole has not done in the lace. It has chosen a wide perimeter for its ZFE – 72 km2, i.e. the entire city within the ring road and two small portions of Colomiers and Tournefeuille – and the maximum time slot for application, i.e. the whole time, 24/7. A voluntarism that makes some residents, motorists or bikers dizzy. “It’s quite simply the most restrictive ZFE in France”, emphasizes Agnès Grillou. She represents the French Federation of Angry Bikers (FFMC) within the Interclub ZFE 31 which brings together users wishing to make the system more flexible. By demonstrating loudly, as last November, but also by talking more calmly and making concrete proposals.
More flexible in Paris
The collective put several suggestions on the table. Like this idea, retained in Strasbourg and Grenoble, to grant an exemption to vintage vehicles, old by definition. Or even this hypothesis of exonerating from ZFE those who are insured under the “leisure” formula and who are therefore not found in traffic jams during peak hours. “Reims will experiment with this system by transmitting to public security the list of the vehicles concerned which have reported themselves”, affirms Agnès Grillou. She is also campaigning for a three-year moratorium for two-wheelers (and three-wheelers), which “allow traffic to flow more smoothly”.
It’s not just users who are worried. Jean-Luc Lagleize (Modem), MP for the 2nd constituency, including neighborhoods of Toulouse but also rural municipalities outside metropolitan France, voted for the LOM law. But he recalls “that it remains flexible” and “that other cities in France more exposed to pollution have chosen more progressive measures, in any case more socially acceptable”. He cites Strasbourg, where “one can request a one-off derogation when one does not have the appropriate vehicle”. The parliamentarian especially takes the example of Paris, whose ZFE system only applies “on weekdays, and from 8 am to 8 pm”. Lifting the device at night, when public transport is scarcer and traffic jams are non-existent is also part of the proposals of the Interclub ZFE 31, concerned about caregivers or workers in 3X8s.
Concrete problems pending
Jean-Luc Lagleize also brings up concrete problems. The anxiety, for example, of the many motorcycle dealers and repairers concentrated on avenue d’Atlanta, within the ZFE perimeter. They are frightened at the thought that their regulars will no longer be able to ride up to them on the handlebars of their old and precious bikes. “I also wonder if the parking-relay of the metro terminus in Borderouge will be within the perimeter,” he said. Something to dissuade the barge if you can no longer come with your venerable jew’s harp to jump on the metro, which is nevertheless green. Without counting the inhabitants of rural communes who will not be entitled to the premium for the conversion of the metropolis to buy a less polluting car.
All these proposals and grievances converge on a single office. That of François Cholet, the vice-president of the metropolis in charge of the file. He received the Interclub collective on January 7, the deputy Lagleize last Tuesday. Another meeting is scheduled with the collective on February 18. The elected official does not speak about the final arbitrations that the mayor and president of the metropolis Jean-Luc Moudenc (LR) will make. But his interlocutors all found him “open” to dialogue.