Thousands of kilometers of roads pass under the banner of some twenty departments, cities and regions which have been entrusted by the State with the management and operation of national roads and motorways in their territories. This is a decision provided for in the “3DS” decentralization law, and published this Sunday in the Official Journal.
This decision dated Wednesday allows the transfer of national roads, motorways and portions of roads in the public domain to around fifteen departments including Bouches-du-Rhône, Gers or Moselle, and to the metropolises of Lyon, Toulouse and Dijon.
“Tight negotiations”
In application of the 3DS law (differentiation, decentralization, deconcentration and simplification), adopted in February 2022, the communities were invited to take over the non-conceded motorways and the national roads crossing their territory, against compensation from the State. Close negotiations have taken place in recent months, and some of them, such as Doubs and Saône-et-Loire, have given up on them.
Another novelty, these same roads or portions of non-conceded tracks could also be made available to regions, which until then had no own road network, “on an experimental basis and for a period of eight years”. Some of them have therefore taken the plunge, such as the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the Grand-Est and Occitanie.
The law provides that “the transfer of motorways, roads and sections of tracks does not affect the status of express road, trunk road, motorway or road of European importance”. The free part of the A7 arriving in Marseille, taken over by the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, should thus remain a motorway.
This is the third phase of State withdrawal from the road network after massive transfers to the departments in 1972 and 2006. Prelude to the 3DS law, Alsace and the metropolis of Strasbourg had already recovered the management of their motorways and roads in 2021.