Bordeaux pushes back—a little—against the automobile

I recently spent nearly a week in Bordeaux, a city I had previously been in only briefly.

I was particularly interested in looking at all the ways that Bordeaux has been attempting to push back against the hegemony of the automobile. It’s developed a reputation for having gone as far in this direction as any city in France.

The context is that, during the 1960s and 1970s—an era some French writers have characterized by the phrase “le tout automobile”—Bordeaux did as much as any French city to adapt itself to the car. It sprawled enormously, and ended up with the lowest density of any major French urban area.¹ According to INSEE, Bordeaux also had the largest proportion of households with two or more cars of any large French metropolitan area.² To accommodate these cars, Bordeaux built France’s largest beltway (the Rocade), 45 km long, which of course encouraged further sprawl. It didn’t quite succeed in a plan to run freeways through the inner city, but it did improve its major north-south surface road enough so that 100,000 vehicles used it every day, passing right by its central business district.

It’s worth remembering that Bordeaux, thanks in part to its soggy soils and in part to local traditions, never was a particularly dense place. Much of the inner city consisted (and still consists) mostly of smaller, predominantly two-story buildings, and until quite recently there were hardly any structures other than church steeples higher than something like five stories in the whole metropolitan area. A partial exception demonstrates one of the ways that Bordeaux tried to adapt itself to the automobile. In the 1960s, an urban renewal project in Mériadeck, which adjoined the old CBD, replaced a working-class quarter of one- and two-story buildings with six-or-so-story offices and apartments. These were connected by a Corbusier-style platform designed to separate pedestrians from car traffic. These days the office buildings are mostly used by government agencies—a sure sign that they were difficult to rent—and the concrete platforms are generally empty. Except for a shopping mall that was built along with the project, this area is now by far the emptiest part of central Bordeaux.

Near-empty platform above street level at Mériadeck, the result of a 1960s urban-renewal scheme in which pedestrians were separated from the street.

In most French cities, there was a fairly radical change of emphasis by the 1980s. There was a widespread realization that “le tout automobile” was something of a dead end. Following it to its logical conclusion would have destroyed existing cities. Most cities stopped investing in new freeways and started improving public transport and adding facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. Bordeaux was slow to make the change, in part perhaps because it’s been a fairly traditional place and in part because so much of the public debate centered on whether to build a subway, which would have been an enormously expensive undertaking, thanks in part to Bordeaux’s soils. Bordeaux’s sprawl also made it a poor fit for what would have been a short linear system.

Bordeaux’s shift to planning for pedestrians and transit only occurred in the mid-1990s. The election of Alain Juppé as mayor in 1995 was apparently a factor.  A decision was finally made to move forward with an elaborate tram system and to take numerous other steps to reduce the role of the automobile and improve conditions in the central city. The change in the landscape of central Bordeaux over the next decade was so enormous that it’s inspired at least three books.³

Bordeaux’s transformation involved several interconnected steps.

[1] A tramway system. Bordeaux started with a three-line system that barely made it out of the inner city. It was felt to be a success from the day the first line opened in 2003. All three lines have since been extended, and a fourth line is supposed to open by the end of 2019. Most of Bordeaux’s tram lines now reach the Rocade. There are something like 300,000 passengers a day, which is respectable in an urban area of approximately 1.2 million (especially when you consider how many people walk and bicycle in Bordeaux). Service is quite frequent during the day. All of the trains I rode this month were substantially full in the inner city—and rather empty out near the Rocade. It isn’t easy anywhere to get people who are part of the automobile culture to change their ways. Outer Bordeaux remains a diffuse and sprawling place. At least large swaths of it have better transit than they once did.

Tram on Rue d’Ornano west of the Bordeaux’s central business district. Note the signs forbidding access by motor vehicle. The smallish buildings and narrow, straight streets are characteristic of much of central Bordeaux. Note that the tram is getting power from an underground conduit between the tracks (“alimentation par sol”). This technology was pioneered in Bordeaux.

The Bordeaux urban area emphasizing rail transit lines and facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. Base GIS data are from the Geofabrik version of OpenStreetMap; these data have been heavily edited.

Closeup of much of central Bordeaux. Source of data as in the previous map.

[2] Widespread pedestrianization. Bordeaux’s sprawl and something like a century of only modest pressure to alter the inner city have had one wonderful consequence. There is a very large area in which 18th- and 19th-century buildings on generally narrow 18th- and 19th-century streets predominate. The UNESCO world heritage site that covers much of central Bordeaux is said to be the largest urban UNESCO site in the world. Large parts of this area were turned into pedestrian zones when the tramway was constructed. In many places (including several key streets with no tram line) motor vehicles were forbidden completely (except, sometimes, for early-morning deliveries).

Rue Ste-Catherine in central Bordeaux, said to be the longest pedestrian street in the world. The four- and five-story buildings are characteristic of the central business district and some of its surrounding neighborhoods.

Elsewhere, lanes for the trams replaced lanes for cars and only a very narrow motor-vehicle lane was left. In some inner-city neighborhoods with narrow streets, two-way tram traffic occupied entire streets, and only local motor-vehicle traffic is allowed access, and then usually only in one direction (see photo above). As a result, pedestrianization—or at least partial pedestrianization—can be found not just in the central business district but even in what might be called the outer central city: the blocks of two-story residential buildings built mostly during the 19th century. You no longer feel in most of central Bordeaux that the automobile comes first.

The Pont de Pierre is a special case. It’s the oldest bridge across the Garonne (parts of it date to the 1820s)—and, really, the only Garonne bridge that leads directly to Bordeaux’s central business district. According to a 1968 traffic map, this bridge carried more motor-vehicle traffic than any other stretch of roadway in the Bordeaux area.⁴ These days, two lanes are devoted to trams, two lanes to pedestrians, and two lanes to bicycles, buses, and taxis. On the latter stretches, the buses and (rare) taxis are expected to travel at bicycle speed. During commute hours the bridge is jammed with people walking and cycling.

The Pont de Pierre at sunrise.

Bordeaux had its origin as a Roman city and it was only a tiny place during the Middle Ages. Thus, some of its straight Roman streets have been preserved. Pedestrianization of the irregular streets in the medieval cores of many European cities is common enough. Bordeaux is unusual in that so many of its pedestrianized streets are straight. The Rue Ste-Catherine, at 1.3 km, is said to be the longest pedestrianized street in the world (see photo above).

[3] Replacing the docks with a park that encourages “soft” modes of transportation. Bordeaux was France’s major port during much of the 18th and 19th centuries. Its prosperity was based disproportionately on trade with the West Indies (including, for a time, the slave trade). Bordeaux’s main port area was located along the Garonne, right next to its central business district, where the distinctive bend of the river left an area of deep water at the shoreline. The proximity of port to city was an enormous advantage in the era before mechanical transport. Bordeaux’s port did not do so well in the 20th century, however. Its location a hundred hard-to-navigate kilometers from the sea was awkward. Furthermore, Bordeaux did not have a heavily populated hinterland. Marseille, Nantes, and (in most years) several other French cities now have much more important ports. There is also the issue that modern, container-oriented port facilities in Bordeaux have had to be built downstream, several kilometers from the old port. Bordeaux’s central-city port was pretty moribund by the 1980s.

Years of discussion about what to do with the old port eventually led to a decision in the late 1990s to replace it with recreational land. Close to the CBD, the old port sheds (hangars) were removed completely, and the space they occupied was turned into parkland. A large part of the park’s area was given over to recreational paths. A wide multi-use path was built along the shoreline, and a path for bicycles was added on the inland side of the newly created space. This riverside parkland seemed like an overwhelmingly successful place to me. On warm weekend afternoons, it was attracting huge crowds.

Multi-use path along the Garonne.

In the early morning cyclists and a smaller number of pedestrians turn it into a major commute route.

A peculiar aspect of the transformation of Bordeaux’s old port is that cruise ships are still allowed to tie up in the old port area. The result looks a bit incongruous. Of course, it results in still greater crowds.

Downstream, the port sheds were left in place but were turned into shops and eating places. Here the recreational path is narrower—too narrow really for the number of users.

The much narrower multi-use path along the Garonne a bit downstream. Note the cruise ship on the Garonne.

A more modest recreational path was also built on the other (right, eastern) bank of the Garonne so that it’s easy to arrange to walk, run, or bicycle in a loop.

[4] Revitalization of the Right Bank. Like many cities on major rivers, Bordeaux is a lopsided place. The Garonne has always been a real barrier, and most of the built-up area is on the left, western bank. La Bastide, the neighborhood on the Right Bank immediately across from Bordeaux’s central business district, was until recently an exclusively working-class place, and much of its river bank was occupied by not-very-prosperous factories. Bordeaux’s government has taken numerous steps over the last twenty-five or so years to redress the balance. It’s built new bridges across the Garonne. A tram line that goes quite far into the Right Bank was one of the first lines to open. A park along the Garonne has been created, replacing obsolete factories. I wouldn’t say that La Bastide feels as bustling or prosperous today as much of the Left Bank, and many of the old factory sites are still empty, but it’s no longer a remote and run-down place. It’s become part of Bordeaux.

[5] Euratlantique. The latest inner-city transformation is occurring in the area south of Bordeaux’s train station, the Gare St-Jean. This area, the central part of which is traditionally known as Belcier or St-Jean-Belcier, has been an extremely modest working-class area with a certain number of increasingly obsolete industrial establishments. Its location would probably have put it in line for change even without government intervention, but the municipal government has decided to hurry the process along. While planners insist that they’ve been consulting long-term residents, they’ve developed plans to turn much of St-Jean-Belcier into a neighborhood of offices, apartments, and entertainment venues under the name Euratlantique (derived of course from Euroméditerranée in Marseille and Euralille in Lille). Over the last several years, Euratlantique has come to encompass not just the vicinity of the train station but a substantial area in southern Bordeaux, as well as in neighboring communes on both sides of the Garonne. Most of this broader Euratlantique has been a zone of industry, rail yards, and low-prestige housing, and it’s thought to be ripe for redevelopment.

The process has really only just begun, and much of Euratlantique is still the kind of place where you can see a city being altered before your eyes anywhere you turn.⁵

A lone pedestrian walks through a part of Belcier that is being turned into Euratlantique. Note that several of the old façades on the right side of the street are being preserved.

Belcier/Euratlantique has the peculiar distinction of being virtually the only part of central Bordeaux where there are tall buildings. It’s also one of the few close-in places where it was possible to keep a promise to encourage dense development along tram lines.⁶

The changing urban landscape in Belcier/Euratlantique just northeast of the Carle Vernet tram station.

The only more or less completed part of Euratlantique is a tiny area along the Garonne just south of the railroad tracks, where one can find a shiny new Hilton hotel, an even shinier Caisse d’Épargne office building, and a folly by architect Bjarke Ingels known as la Méca. Méca theoretically stands for Maison de l’économie créative et de la culture d’Aquitaine, but the name’s—provocative—suggestion of a certain city in Saudi Arabia is surely no accident, and, in fact, while la Méca provides office space for several local arts organizations, so far as I can tell, its chief function is to serve as a pilgrimage site for those with an interest in eccentric architecture. A wall helps visitors overlook the fact that la Méca, like the rest of Euratlantique, is cut off from the Garonne by a noisy highway. (There are plans to replace it with an extension of riverside parkland some day.)

Pilgrims at la Méca, Euratlantique.

Those who have known Bordeaux for several decades are pretty unanimous in declaring that the city has changed enormously, and for the better. In the 1980s and 1990s Bordeaux seemed to many to be a city in decline. The powers-that-be set out to make Bordeaux an economically vibrant place again, and a city with a status in Europe commensurate with its population. There was a sense that the best way to achieve these goals was to make central Bordeaux a more congenial place for residents and visitors. Many of the steps that were taken—replacing the old docks with parkland, for example, and diversifying the working-class neighborhoods east and south of the center—were very similar to steps taken in older port cities all over the world.  The effort to end the reign of “le tout automobile” in central Bordeaux has parallels throughout the world too, but this process has usually not been as self-conscious as in Bordeaux. It’s still not clear how successful this effort has been. The number of residents of the Bordeaux area who commuted to work by automobile dropped from 59 to 50% between 2009 and 2019.⁷ The change isn’t huge, but it’s in the hoped-for direction. The rate of automobile ownership, unlike that in Paris, hasn’t really budged, however, and public transit use has been pretty flat. Bicycle use, on the other hand, has been booming, and Bordeaux often appears on lists of the world’s best cycling cities.

What statistics cannot easily capture is that, to a short-term visitor at least, central Bordeaux seems to be thriving. There are people everywhere; shops appear to be doing all right; public transport vehicles are full; and the mostly restored 18th- and 19th-century buildings (and some of the new ones too) are quite impressive. And it’s pretty clear that at least some of central Bordeaux’s  success is connected with the fact that the vast majority of movement there now occurs on foot, by bicycle, or by public transport.