Les Deux premières lignes de tramway de l´agglomération Lyonnaise

previous state

In 1997, the Urban Development Plan for the Metropolitan Area of Lyon defined, in the short and long terms, the present transport policy of the city, closely linking this with its urban development. The plan aimed at completing the general network of public transport, both underground at surface-level and to introduce a tramline as this type of transport adapted well to the types of routes to be covered. It was also compatible with the criteria set for the development of the metropolitan area.

The choice of the tramline and the desire to develop the project as part of the architectural setting and cityscape meant an operation where introducing the line involved a remodelling of the areas crossed. This in turn would permit increased possibilities of transport as an alternative to vehicles, while also being attentive to the requirements of quality and safety in the urban spaces involved in this major reorganisation of the different traffic flows.

aim of the intervention

The Urban Community of Lyons determined that the guiding aims of the planning project of introducing the first two tramlines in the city had to be based, first, on the most equitable possible organisation of the metropolitan territory and integrating the new form of transport into other big projects envisaged for the city and, second, on consolidating and improving the urban structure, highlighting the city's main axes while enhancing the appearance of the city. In terms of infrastructure, the operation was expected to reinforce the connections between the different kinds of transport and to link up the different districts and structural facilities with the new intermodal points of transport.

In order to attain these objectives, the new tramlines were to form part of an overall city-planning project that involved architectural work that would give shape to a new use and would apply an urban strategy that would be attentive to the kinds of impact it would involve along the length of the two new tramlines. Unlike the underground, a functional facility that is internalised into the city, the tramline, with its surface visibility, offered the chance to illustrate a fully observable and material linking up of Lyon's most geographically, socially and economically distant zones: centre points and peripheral areas, institutional sites and working-class areas.

description

The two new tramlines that come together in the Gare de Perrache and the Place Carnot connect the districts of Lyons through an element of lineal centrality, restructuring them around the new stations and, at some points, creating considerable upheaval with the need for large-scale urban reorganisation and, at other points, fitting more naturally into the area. The space that has resulted from the introduction of the tramline has modified the organisation of traffic throughout, reducing the surface available for vehicles while generating new needs, both for parking and for improving the accommodation between public space, pedestrian and bicycle thoroughfares on the one hand, and between public space and a combination of urban uses on the other.

Work was done simultaneously on different scales, from the overall scale through to that of the details and orientation of the project. It was guided by the conviction that the tramline should not have priority but neither should it constitute just another city element among the rest. It was to represent the introduction of a new route that, in a discrete way, should rapidly become a familiar feature in all the areas it crosses. The continuity of the tramlines was to be highlighted in order to emphasise an unbroken series of settings within the historical continuity of each urban sequence. Far from simply becoming yet another rectilinear form within a specific urban axis, ignoring its physiognomy and particularities, the introduction the tramlines aimed to respect and accentuate the singularity of each space served without producing any episode of rupture in the sequences of the route.

Line 1 and Line 2, while constituting part of a single network and project, are dissimilar to the extent that their routes go through different urban areas so that they link up contrasting points of agglomeration. Thus the project, as part of its general aim of becoming an integral part of the city, has found, precisely in the specific context of each line, reasons for distinctive ways of characterisation. Both routes have created new intermodal points between tram, train, bus and underground services.

Line 1, Perrache-La Doua, links the two main railway stations of the city, along with the two most significant urban centres that have grown up around them: the old centre, the district of the Perrache railway station, and the business district constructed in the 1970s around the Part Dieu station. Along its route, L1 runs along Rue Servient and the new esplanade of Vivier-Merle. The arrival of the tramline has completely reshaped the former boulevard and, along Avenue Tiers, has also formed part of the process of reshaping this space that had gone into a slow decline after the Brotteaux Station was closed down. Crossing the southern part of the Rhône docks area and the Rive Gauche quarter, the line breaks down the barrier that had traditionally separated the centre of Lyons from the Villeurbanne district, to continue through to the Doua university campus bearing with it a metaphor of the city, represented to a certain extent by the tramline itself in its particular language and associated elements.

Line 2, Perrache-Saint Priest, joins the centre of Lyons with centres and districts to the east of the metropolitan area of Lyons, as an accompaniment to the development of numerous zones in the process of mutation. Unlike Line 1, Line 2 has been installed in wide roads, which meant that its integration, in urban and cityscape terms, was simpler. In these parts of the city, the tramline offers a clear, fast and comfortable alternative to the other kinds of transport used by residents in their daily movements around the city, in the majority of cases the private car. Joining the centres of Saint Priest, Bron and Lyons, Line 2 opens up a new less centralised and more balanced relation between the different communities constituting Le Gran Lyon.

The continuous line traced by the tram, now inserted into a diversified urban structure, has completely redefined the ground surface, the section of the avenues, the view from façade to façade and the general image of the street in a new conception of the links between users, flows and spaces, with due respect being given to their respective scales and needs.

The work of adapting the streets, squares and crossroads on the tram route began with treatment at ground level, clarifying the different traffic flows to be included and converting it into a space that was comprehensible to the citizens along the length of each line. The specific domain of the tramline is delimited in a surface of 5.85 metres wide with four tracks permitting incoming and outgoing routes of the light tram. Forty-six stops have been constructed, in central or lateral positions depending on the urban setting, at intervals of 300 to 500 metres, representing, along with vegetation, the vertical counterpoints to an intensive ground-level intervention – pavements, tree beds, pedestrian thoroughfares, islands, benches and wooden blocks that were designed, among other elements, according to the general criteria and the logic of the work being done to improve the city's public spaces, while also developing new concepts and models that gave scope and novelty to the intervention. The different types of treatment of the materials offered the possibility for slight variations, creating a rich and unified repertoire, while the materials selected for ground treatment were simple, economical and sober. The criteria guiding the selection of vegetation focussed on offering a new perspective on existing sequences in the cityscape, respecting the mature trees present, emphasising the value of pre-existing vegetation in the private domains adjoining the city’s public spaces, and selecting the species that are best adapted to the historical, geological and symbolic characteristics of the city.

Along the total of 20 km covered by the two lines, the tram stops were planned in order to structure the new transport network thanks to the regularity and familiarity of their presence. A prototype was constructed to this effect so that, in its dimensions and organisation, it could be adapted to all the different situations of location. There are 46 variants, as many as there are stations, of the one basic model that was built as a structure of independent steel porches where the fittings and ceilings of screen-printed glass are installed in a form that is completely open to the street. The stops offer ticket offices, information and shelter, while organising links with other kinds of public transport and parking areas.

assessment

The results of the work done in introducing the two new tramlines in Lyons are a good example of the importance of carrying out this type of urban intervention in keeping with a generalist overview that, through a single project and a holistic vision of the city, is able to go beyond the different characteristics of the sectors involved and strictly technical approaches that are understood as being exclusive to the urban planning discipline. It is only with such an approach that it is possible to achieve the rich and synthetic point of view that can appropriately channel the urban transformation that is brought about in a city with the introduction of a new means of transport, in this case, a tram system.

The work involved in bringing the two tramlines into operation has been done in such a way that it has not only provided access to a new linking system that had not existed hitherto but, thanks to its careful attention to the details of different scales and logics, it has also brought about a reshaping of many parts of the city, the regeneration of unfinished places between the connecting points of the city's extensions and the consolidation of public spaces depending on the area of activity. Full advantage has therefore been taken of the opportunities offered by this operation, with an internalisation of the work that was carried out, or made possible, in giving cohesion to the urban structure, and individual identity to the spaces related with the tramline.

The overlapping of the new transport network with other urban projects envisaged for the city – reassessment of spaces external to residential districts in the process of rehabilitation, the Porte des Alpes Technology Park, regeneration of the banks of the Rhône, restructuring of the university campuses, inter alia – gives still more reinforcement for the project of the tramlines and the role they will have in the future development of the city thanks to the definition of routes that, quietly crossing different city flows, and completely committed to the places they enter, bring the different districts closer together.

Mònica Oliveres i Guixer, architect