Montpellier 4th city in France for traffic jams and longer travel times at rush hour

You just have to drive around 9 a.m. or 6 p.m. in Montpellier to realize that there are traffic jams. At these peak times, the journey time is on average 69% longer, according to a study by the TomTom site, carried out over the 22 working days of September 2022. Toulouse is 9th with +65%.

“What time is wasted in traffic jams!”, here is a reflection that many motorists have behind the wheel, in their stationary car.

This is precisely what figures and demonstrates, a study carried out last month, in 25 major cities in France. She is attached to the home / work journey.

TomTom has calculated the congestion rate of cities, comparing travel times at peak times and during fluid periods.

The palme d’or goes to Marseille, with 83% more travel time. Then come Rennes +72%, Bordeaux +70% and Montpellier, Nice and Toulon, +69%. Toulouse is 9th with +65% compared to normal traffic conditions.

To make a round trip of a total of one hour, 22 working days per month, it takes 40h15 in Marseille, 37h50 in Rennes, 37h24 in Bordeaux and 37:10 in Montpellier. Only 36h18 in Toulouse. Even better, 30:34 in Tours.

Including a lot of time, in traffic jams, at a standstill… 6:15 p.m. in Marseille, a French record. 3:10 p.m. in Montpellier and 2:18 p.m. in Toulouse.

To know the state of road traffic in real time in Montpellier.

In the vast majority of cities, this time spent waiting in traffic jams has been reduced in one year… Between September 2021 and September 2022, minus 2h15 in Rennes, minus 1h35 in Bordeaux, less than 19 minutes in Montpellier and an identical time in Toulouse.

2 cities show a significant change in travel times, Marseille and especially Nice.

If we question motorists, especially in Montpellier, this is not the feeling they have.

Residents of large boulevards are often overwhelmed by the new traffic plan. For some for a year, it has even become unlivable, France bleu Hérault collected their testimonies.

The collective of Residents of the four boulevards, Berthelot, Rabelais, Orient and Vieussens, behind Saint-Roch station, explains that residents are the collateral victims of the new traffic development in the Cité Mion-Saint-Martin district. All the more since the end of transit traffic on avenue Albert Dubout, on August 22, 2022, since cars, trucks and motorcycles are now obliged to pass there.

“I can tell you that at 4:35 every morning, we have a truck passing. We have the noise, but also the vibration of the walls. At night, we can no longer open the windows, so we sleep in an oven. Like others, we plan to leave if the situation does not improve“, details Dahlia member of the collective.

“We have the impression of being the turkeys of the farce. Moreover, the mayor, Michaël Delafosse, said that we do not do a project without breaking eggs, we have the feeling of being broken eggs. We are the only local residents to have been forgotten from the consultation meetings” laments Olivier, who lives on boulevard Rabelais.

“We lived in a place that was still quiet. Today, we are tired of all this constant noise and we have difficulty sleeping” explained Hervé, a resident of boulevard Berthelot for 22 years, to France 3 Occitanie, during a report on October 1.

At Marie’s, a resident of Boulevard Rabelais for 8 years, you can even smell the smell of gasoline in the apartment when you close the windows. This situation poses a problem for her with the arrival of a newborn baby.

All are asking the Métropole de Montpellier to review the traffic plan to transfer part of the traffic to other streets in the city.

After having studied the proposal made by the collective, Montpellier 3M had to refuse it, this one would cause “too much traffic postponement in streets that are even less calibrated and sized to accommodate such a flow” justifies Julie Frêche, the vice-president of the metropolis in charge of transport.

It continues to study the proposals of the inhabitants but underlines the need for a global vision of traffic, up to the interchanges of the A.709 motorway.