Development of the Île de Ré bridge: Charente-Maritime chooses the path… of reason

“Nothing is buried, nothing is stopped,” says Gérard Pons, the vice-president of Charente-Maritime in charge of travel and mobility policy. And yet, nothing is less certain. The departmental council has been thinking for years about adding a third lane to the Île de Ré bridge, in order to “relieve traffic congestion” by reserving this new route for public transport.

Several feasibility studies have been carried out to test and quantify various hypotheses. The result is clear: “Yes, it is possible to build a third track by enlarging the deck,” summarizes the department. But it would cost 45 million euros at the very least for a project estimated at 36 months, “continuously”.

At this price, Charente-Maritime, which is already saving Fort Boyard at great expense when it is not cutting its budgets, has therefore decided to wait. Especially since this third lane would only save drivers a handful of minutes during peak summer traffic.

45 million euros, 36 months of work…

“We clearly see the cost incurred for a not very convincing result. I prefer to work on less expensive and reversible solutions. The traffic jams are occasional, 60 days a year at most,” estimates Patrice Raffarin, departmental councilor of the Île de Ré and mayor of Rivedoux-Plage, the town into which the Rais bridge, inaugurated in 1988, leads.

“In the age of soft mobility, encouraging automobile flows no longer corresponds to the philosophy of the day,” says his Rais pair and departmental advisor Véronique Richez-Lerouge.

The department therefore studied other possibilities such as regulating traffic on both sides of the Île de Ré bridge. Activating lights “at the right of each toll barrier”, on the La Rochelle side, would notably save a few minutes during the summer peaks. Enough to absorb heavy traffic, at little cost, now estimates the community, which could begin experiments from the summer of 2026 to test different formulas.

On this date, the toll bridge on the Rétais bridge will have been fully automated and the manual cabins will have been removed from the landscape.