After years of criticism of the Paris City Hall for the dilapidated state of the Pont des Arts, the replacement of the bridge’s wooden decking began on Tuesday. Announced for 2022, the renovation of the pedestrian bridge that spans the Seine in the heart of Paris began with the removal of part of the wooden deck. It gives a glimpse of the river below, under the steel structure.
The replacement of 1,600 m2 of wood (1.8 million euros) must be spread over two phases until the beginning of September, the bridge being renovated on each side of its length in order to remain accessible.
An exotic wood from Africa, badi or bilinga, was chosen because it was “very resistant”, explained Ambroise Dufayet, head of the Seine and engineering structures section at the Roads Department. This “wood which is a little lighter, but which is beginning to acquire a patina”, will be brought by barge, in four stages, from Bonneuil-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), where the old oak cladding which dates back to of 2005, according to Ambroise Dufayet.
The state of the dilapidated bridge regularly criticized
“You took a long time! You shouldn’t be in a hurry…”, reacted a passerby, calling on the deputies of the PS mayor Anne Hidalgo, lambasted by the Saccage Paris movement, which blames her for the lack of maintenance of the capital’s heritage. Between the tinkering, the holes or the planks which were lifted, the dilapidated state of the bridge was a recurring subject for its opponents.
In 2014, part of the bridge’s fence collapsed under the weight of a million “love padlocks”, which ended up weighing tens of tons. The town hall had replaced the fences with glass panels before preventing their reinstallation.
“There are a lot of construction sites at the moment”
The LR mayor of the 6th arrondissement, Jean-Pierre Lecoq, refused to go to the launch of the construction site, deploring that the renovation began “years after (his) first requests (…)”. Heritage Assistant (PS) Karen Taïeb defended “incompressible times” for municipal services. “There are a lot of construction sites at the moment,” added construction assistant (PCF) Jacques Baudrier, pointing out that the three footbridges of the Saint-Martin canal had also had to be renovated recently.
Town planning assistants Emmanuel Grégoire (PS) and roads David Belliard (EELV) recalled the recent doubling of the budget for road maintenance.