Bordeaux opens a sixth road bridge over the Garonne

The Simone-Veil bridge connects, in the south of the city, the two banks of the new Euratlantique district which aims to welcome some 50.000 new residents by 2040 in the municipalities of Bordeaux, Floirac and Bègles.

549 meters long and above all 44 meters wide, with a stripped-down architecture, it welcomes motorists on a 2x2 lane. But its size also allows it to reserve two lanes for buses and give pride of place to gentle traffic, with a two-way cycle path four meters wide, as well as a large pedestrian lane 18 meters wide.

Costing 151 million euros, it was delivered four years late. Started in 2017 by the Fayat construction group, the project suffered from a financial disagreement on a point relating to the construction of the bridge piers. After a breakdown in the market and a new call for competition, the work was resumed in 2020 by the Bouygues group.

Historically, the width of the river as well as the port and maritime status of Bordeaux explain the rarity of crossings of the Garonne. Since the "stone bridge" completed in 1822, four others - two "urban" and two of the motorway type - were built between 1967 and 2013.

Despite these successive constructions and the development of public transport, urban growth and demographic dynamics - the population of the agglomeration has increased by 10% in ten years, to 831.500 inhabitants in 2023 - have generated additional journeys, saturating existing crossings.

The traffic envisaged on the Simone-Veil bridge is 30.000 vehicles per day, or around 40% of the cumulative traffic of the two other urban bridges of the Gironde capital (Saint-Jean and Chaban-Delmas).