More than three million vehicles cross the Île de Ré viaduct every year. The department of Charente-Maritime is preparing to work on the prices of this work barred by a toll. Several working groups will be formed by May, says Patrice Raffarin, departmental councilor of the various right majority and mayor of Rivedoux. “Elected officials, associations and socio-economic actors will be associated with it, as will the local population.
The idea is to obtain a collective synthesis”, details this elected official who nevertheless warns: “We will work with constant recipes, we need it! If the price list includes a myriad of different prices, it is based on a simple principle: seasonality with a high and a low season. It is this lever that the department intends to eventually modify. “These high and low seasons could be understood in the past, but this temporality is no longer appropriate today”, summarizes Patrice Raffarin who pleads, “in a personal capacity”, for the creation of a third season coming, for example, to oversee the weekends -ends, bridges and public holidays, factors of large crowds on the island.
Mayor of Loix and President of the Community of Communes (CdC) of the Ile de Ré, Lionel Quillet is more circumspect about this initiative: “We are going to open Pandora’s box, beware of false good ideas! This elected official, former first vice-president of the Department beaten in the last elections by Patrice Raffarin, recalls that the Rétais viaduct benefits from “the last ecotax in France”. This tool, believes Lionel Quillet, makes it possible both to finance environmental actions and to regulate the flow of vehicles and visitors “in one of the most preserved territories in France”. Modifying the seasonality could thus call into question the principle and the viability of this eco-tax, he warns, calling for “consulting all Rétais” and setting up a real mobility plan to accompany any modification of the seasonality.
Sensitive, the subject thickens further with the notion of residents and beneficiaries. To date, only residents of Rétais benefit from free access to the viaduct. Employees and professionals coming every day from the continent pay full price. A group called “Users 17” has been fighting for decades against “this lack of equity” and is demanding in particular a preferential rate of less than 50% in low season. “It’s one of the things to discuss concedes”, the departmental councilor Patrice Raffarin who hopes to present a copy this summer or, at the latest, before the fall. The department’s new pricing policy could thus be applied from 2023.