Stop every 35 meters on average. This is the maneuver that motorists who use part of the Avenue de Fétilly in La Rochelle are forced to make. At the beginning of the school year, the city council decided to install no less than fourteen “Stop” signs on a route of only 500 meters on this axis that runs through a residential area of the town, with the aim of reducing the speed of traffic. .
But residents gathered on site are not happy about this experiment, which is expected to last six months. “It is a permanent nuisance, it slows down and crowds the avenue,” one of them complains.
“The number of stop signs may be a little excessive,” says another resident. “On the street perhaps we could have found an intermediate solution.” In addition, merchants are also affected by this installation, such as Florence Martin-Duloz, who runs a tobacconist’s shop in the neighborhood:
“Starting in November, my billing and attendance fell by 20%,” explains the tobacconist. “I lost about 450 clients a month.”
A public meeting planned for March
Despite numerous complaints from residents related to incessant strikes or even declining attendance, the city council claims to have given residents a voice and is even happy about the first positive effects of its experiment.
“The nominal speed has dropped a lot,” emphasizes Christophe Berthaud, deputy mayor of La Rochelle. “This reassures many residents who travel, especially by bicycle or with family.” A public meeting will be held in March to decide the future of these 14 “Stop” signs.
This installation in La Rochelle is reminiscent of a similar case in Epron, in Normandy. On one of the streets in this town of Calvados, ten “Stop” signs were installed over a distance of 200 meters, that is, an even greater frequency of stops than in the Rochelle example.
As a sign of the discontent of motorists, some of whom systematically did not stop, eight of the ten “stop” signs had been stolen.
Source: BFM TV
