Widening works to create a three-lane dual carriageway on a 35 km stretch of the A61 motorway between Toulouse and Narbonne. Above is a section near the Port-Lauragais service areas.
CONSTRUCTION
VINCI Autoroutes is a leading public works programme manager in France. Taking into account all projects, from major works to motorway maintenance programmes, 600 operations were under way on its network in 2023. Several transformational projects under the motorway stimulus plan were completed in 2023:
- on the A10, widening of a 24 km section to a three-lane dual carriageway between Veigné and Sainte-Maure- de-Touraine south of Tours and creation of a fourth lane over a 16 km stretch north of Orléans, both in central France. The latter was brought into service at the same time as the new Saran-Gidy interchange to support the ongoing development of Greater Orléans and the region’s logistics industry, which has grown significantly since opening of the A19;
- on the A61, widening of two sections to accommodate heavier traffic (a total of 35 km), the first outside Toulouse and the other near Narbonne, both in south-west France;
- on the A57, further widening works over a 7 km section in Greater Toulon in south-east France.
Other operations carried out on the network include:
- on the A11, reconfiguration of the Porte de Gesvres intersection at the junction with the Nantes ring road in north-west France;
- on the A680 interchange ramp, widening a 7.6 km sec-tion of an existing road and construction of the Verfeil interchange at the junction with the future A69 motorway near Toulouse;
- in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in south-east France, improvement works to the A7/A54 junction and to the Cadarache interchange on the A51, which provides access to the CEA research centre.
These projects systematically include environmental rehabilitation works. For example, the A10 widening project south of Tours provided the opportunity to create 26 catch basins and water treatment ponds to drain run-off from the motorways, 75 hectares of landscaping works and 3,600 metres of noise barriers. There, offsetting measures were also implemented over more than 30 hectares, such as creating spawning grounds for pike, rehabilitating three waterways and restoring 6 hectares of calcicolous grasslands.
Alongside these general motorway improvement works, VINCI Autoroutes also carries out projects that are strictly environmental in purpose. These include the wildlife crossings completed in 2023 on the A10 (Vellèches, Vienne) the A11 (Authondu-Perche, Eure-et-Loir), the A61 (Narbonne, Aude) and the A71 (Vierzon, Cher), intended to restore ecological connectivity between the two sides of the motorway.
With respect to infrastructure maintenance, VINCI Autoroutes renovated road surfaces on the A7 (Auberives-Saint-Rambert, 32 km; Lançon-Rognac, 28 km) and the A61 (Arzens-Lézignan, 46 km). It also undertook significant structure replacement or renovation projects on the A7 (Vienne and Bonpas viaducts, the RN7 overpass at Bourg-lès-Valence), the A9 (four viaducts between Le Boulou and the Spanish border) and on the A10 in the section that passes through Tours.