As every year, the months of July and August are conducive to work on French roads. Among them, the closure of a short stretch of 4 kilometers is already causing nightmares for many motorists.
Summer is both the period of major vacation departures and also the time when road traffic is most fluid. The contrast between weekend traffic, sometimes at the limit of saturation, and weekday traffic, on unusually deserted roads, is striking. It is also for many French people who drive to their places of work the opportunity for a few weeks to drastically reduce their travel time.
Unfortunately, this period also coincides with that of the intensification of road works. The companies intend to make the most of the significant reduction in traffic and usually plan road repairs and improvements during the months of July and August. The year 2023 is no exception to the rule. Around Paris, facilities to prepare the ground for the Olympic Games are springing up like mushrooms. But it is further north, just over 200 kilometers from the capital, that a construction site risks rotting many motorists in the summer.
Lengthened journeys at least by two for more than a month
The work is taking place on the A1 motorway, in the Paris-Lille direction. They only extend over 4 kilometers, at the entrance to the Lille conurbation, but the closure of this section to traffic, since July 10, has already caused quite a mess. It must be said that this project, essentially to renovate the asphalt of the road (as well as the waterproofing of seven bridges), concerns a section common to the A1 and the A22 up to the connection with the A25 which sees an average of 100,000 vehicles pass daily according to actu.fr.
The interdepartmental direction of the roads of the North had prepared its blow, but the various diversions proposed only overload the axes already widely borrowed. Whether on the national roads 227 and 356 or on the A22, motorists find themselves trapped in endless traffic jams on routes which in addition sometimes extend the distance of their journey by two!
Count more than 30 kilometers to join the A25 in the direction of Dunkirk instead of 13 on the normal route from the Ronchin sector on the A1. Vacationers and especially locals who frequently use this stretch of motorway will have to take their troubles patiently. Five weeks, from July 10 to August 13, will be needed to rehabilitate these 115,000 m2 of roadway…