Inaugurated on December 21, 2003, the Bordeaux tramway has gradually established itself in the city and now includes around 80 kilometers of tracks and 139 stations, including the longest line in France. With more than eight million kilometers traveled in 2022, its success cannot be denied.
Le Figaro Bordeaux
It is impossible today to imagine the Port of the Moon without him, as he has changed the face of Bordeaux. Every inhabitant of the city would recognize the bell sound it emits to alert pedestrians. And yet, he is only 20 years old. On December 21, 2003, with the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, and the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé on board, the tram crossed the Garonne for the first time. For its twentieth anniversary, two days of celebration are dedicated to this emblematic means of transport, which has transformed the lives of the people of Bordeaux. Return to a metropolitan epic.
A horse-drawn tram in the 19th century
When it was first put into circulation, on May 4, 1880, the Bordeaux tramway hardly resembled the large electric blue snake that it is today. The first line was in fact horse-drawn: 752 horses were used every day to move the 71 cars of the Bordeaux tramway. From 1899, the electrification of the network made it faster and extended it to surrounding communities. From 1888, several municipalities bordering Bordeaux in turn created an electric tramway: Blanquefort, Le Bouscat and Eysines, then Caudéran, Mérignac and Pessac.
The city was then particularly well equipped with public transport, but it was a political will that put an end to the first growth of the tram in Bordeaux. Jacques Chaban-Delmas, mayor of the city from 1947 to 1995, decided to eradicate the Bordeaux tramway, banking on the development of all automobiles and the “modernity» promised by the individual car, without realizing the negative impact it would quickly cause. December 7, 1958 sounded the death knell for the Bordeaux tramway, on Place Gambetta, with Jacques Chaban-Delmas on board. Faced with the disappointments caused by the rise of the car (traffic jams, pollution and accidents), the companion of the Liberation sought a solution in the 1980s and then considered the creation of a metro. A project, however, abandoned by his successor, Alain Juppé, who instead bet on resurrecting the tramway.
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An innovative pair
Alstom won the call for tenders and manufactured the first train in 2001. The first model was 34 meters long and could accommodate 200 passengers. The longer trains are 44 meters long and can accommodate 300. To fit discreetly into the Bordeaux landscape – the largest urban space listed as a UNESCO heritage site – an electrical supply through the ground is planned, making the CUB (urban community of Bordeaux, the ancestor of the metropolis) one of the first metropolises to use this system. It is initially planned that the tram will be divided into three lines, over approximately 43 kilometers. Ultimately, more than double will be covered.
The first phase of work began in 2000 and line A was put into service in December 2003. Lines B and C opened the following year. “The city center is only about twenty minutes from the towns of Talence and Pessac where the Bordeaux university center is located. Two other development phases followed between 2004 and 2020», Specifies the metropolis. In 2019, it’s the turn of line D to finally emerge. According to Bordeaux Métropole, “this mode of travel and its arrival in public space” allowed “to completely rethink the agglomeration, restructure the territory, meet the needs of the 27 municipalities, redevelop the city and better share space between pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles».
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Bordeaux tram, which has become in its own way an emblem of the city, represents the majority of public transport use today (62% of trips in 2023, according to figures from the metropolis). In 2022, more than 55 million people have validated their transport ticket on one of the trams, a figure to put into perspective because not all users validate it. A larger number of people were therefore able to take the tram during this period. Still in 2022, the four tram lines were the busiest of all public transport in the metropolis, by far. In one year, Bordeaux trams have traveled more than eight million kilometers, the equivalent of 200 times circumnavigating the globe.
Unusual events: a king and a lama
The events date back ten years but the people of Bordeaux at the time all remember them. On October 31, 2013, in the early morning, five young friends leaving a nightclub had the bizarre idea of entering a circus and coming out with a llama on a leash. They then enter tram B with the camelid, named Serge, provoking the disbelief of the driver of the train, who has difficulty realizing what is happening. The story went around the world and even caused the singer Serge Lama, his “namesake”, to react.
No event has since had the same resonance as the trip of Serge the lama, but others have still hit the headlines. On June 4, 2023, a clap of thunder fell on tram line A, towards the airport. Despite the impressive images, no injuries were reported, because the Bordeaux tramway was designed to deal with this eventuality. After a few repairs, the train was able to be put back into operation. Most recently, on September 22, 2023, “the metropolitan tram replaced the famous Gold State Coach, carriage of the British royal family, for a short journey between Quinconces and Place de la Bourse stations», says the town hall. Indeed, during their visit to Bordeaux, King Charles III and Queen Camilla, “concerned about the environment, have reinforced the ecological and practical image of this mode of transport», taking the tram for a few minutes.
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Getting around tomorrow: the limits of the tram?
Although the increasing attendance figures demonstrate that the success of the tramway continues, this emblematic means of transport seems to have more or less reached its peak. Since its extension towards the airport – making the A line approximately 30 kilometers long the longest in the country – the creation of new routes is no longer the priority in terms of public transport. The metropolis is instead focusing on the development of “bus express», like the one which should be put in place between Bordeaux and Saint-Aubin-de-Médoc by mid-2024.
The Bordeaux metropolitan area also attracts an increasingly large population, with more than 800,000 inhabitants in the 28 towns of the metropolis. When renewing the transport network operating contract with Keolis until 2030, the intermunicipality nevertheless specified that “one of the major expectations of Bordeaux Métropole is to reduce saturation, optimize and make the tram more reliable, which remains the main mode of transport in terms of attendance and capacity“. Furthermore, if “the metro does not respond to the emergency», for the mayor of Bordeaux, the ecologist Pierre Hurmic, it is however no longer completely ruled out, with the launch of a study on its feasibility by 2040, which should produce its conclusions in 2025.
Giant cake and collector’s ticket
This weekend of December 16 and 17, the tram will be honored in many ways in Bordeaux. For the occasion, all the former presidents of the CUB and then of the metropolis were invited by Alain Anziani, current president of Bordeaux Métropole: Vincent Feltesse (2007-2014) and Patrick Bobet (2019-2020), but especially Alain Juppé, president of the metropolis from 1995 to 2004 and mayor of the city from 1995 to 2004 then from 2006 to 2019.
For the occasion, a stand will be set up on Place Pey Berland, where a giant cake will be cut on Saturday at noon, to blow out the tram’s twenty candles. Many activities are planned (acrobatics, story readings, drawing and makeup workshops, piano bubbles) and Santa Claus will even be present, to have his photograph taken with the good children, whether or not they have come by tram to to see him. Sunday, around 1 p.m., a “chenille-tram» will begin his stroll through town. Several events are also planned at stations on the four lines. Finally, a collector’s ticket “in (very) limited quantity» will be available for sale on December 16 and 17, in TBM boutiques and on the stand at Place Pey Berland.
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2023-12-16 08:16:21
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