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The substantial supply-side increase in the Lyon real estate market is prompting city officials to work toward integrated urban planning, social cohesion, and socioeconomic development solutions. Thus Grand Lyon (greater Lyon) has embarked on a challenging urban renewal adventure, as (like so many other urban centers) it confronts saturated infrastructures and thus the necessity of developing them.
Following is a close look at the current situation, 24 months before a series of major commercial and residential projects (Lyon Confluence, Carré de Soie, Cours Oxygène, and Tour Oxygène) open their doors.
Supply side of the Lyon real estate market
Lyon is undergoing a makeover. By 2009 or 2010 the city will have three new sites that will strengthen the city’s economic and industrial infrastructure and its capacity for innovation, will optimize its high-tech sector (biotechnology, digital imaging etc.) and will increase the scope of its residential real estate offerings.
First of all, there’s the 370 acre project that will be realized at the southern tip of the Lyon peninsula, at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers. The first phase involves the construction of 1600 dwellings (for 3000 inhabitants), along with 90,000 square meters for the tertiary sector, and 120,000 square meters for commercial space, services, recreation and hotels – plus a museum (Musée des Confluences) and business and cultural facilities.
To the east of the city, in its inner suburb, a 1235 acre project known as Carré de Soie will initially comprise a 40,050 square meter commercial zone, a racetrack, a recreational area, and several hundred dwellings.The second phase will see the addition of 20-30,000 square meters of office space, 100,000 square meters of commercial space, and construction of Interpol’s 25,000 square meter world headquarters.
And then smack dab in the city center will be the Tour Oxygène (the head office of the Part-Dieu shopping mall), as well as its commercial pendant Cours Oxygène, with respectively 28,000 and 17,338 square meters of space for stores, services, and leisure time/cultural facilities.
Another transformation is in the pipeline in 2008 for the Mermoz district (which is located at one of the southern gateways to Lyon), where 270 apartments will be constructed.
Intermodality air, rail, highway and river transport
Needless to say, all these various projects will have a ripple effect in the complex landscape constituted by Lyon’s nine arrondissements, and the 55 communities that go to make up Grand Lyon.
Thus development of Lyon’s transportation infrastructure is a top priority for city officials, at a time when the city is aiming to become one of Europe’s top 15 urban centers, with a view to increasing its allure for the business sector.
“Achieving efficient transport into the city (airports, TGV [high-speed trains], and highways) and out of it (rapid link between the airport and downtown Lyon, extension and interconnection of the streetcar and metro networks)” are the infrastructure harmonization and integration challenges facing these major projects.
The Lyon Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which is keenly interested in optimizing accessibility to the city, is also looking to realize transport projects that will benefit the city’s businesses, and toward this end is proactively participating in regional development decisions. The Chamber advocates the optimization and interconnection of Grand Lyon’s rail, air, highway, and river transport infrastructures, so as to allow for air-rail-highway intermodality, which are key drivers of economic development. “All of these orientations will enable Lyon to continue efficiently in its role as a crossroads of Europe,” the Chamber notes.
A major highway development project aimed at consolidating intercity infrastructures
Thus the Lyon Chamber of Commerce and Industry has proposed the elaboration of a new strategic airport plan that will involve, among other things, improved highway links to the airport. This would also have an impact on highway A48 (Autoroute du Dauphiné), which links the A43 to Grenoble after Bourgoin-Jallieu, as well as on highway A432 for the major northern (Val de Saône and Bourgogne) and western (Massif Central via the A89) routes toward the Alps in the west.
This new link will divert traffic away from the Lyon area, and thus from the A42-(Lyon-Genève à l’Est) A 46 interchange (Nord-Rocade Est). Another project under consideration involves the A89, which will ultimately link Lyon and Bordeaux via Clermont-Ferrand, and the A45, a project that includes doubling the number of existing lanes on the A47 between Saint-Etienne and Lyon.
These highway projects will hopefully ease access to the city for decisionmakers throughout France, which cannot be said to be the case today.
Diverting traffic from the city center; optimization of road links within the city
City officials are pondering a strategy that would involve shunting through traffic away from the city center, while at the same time rationalizing the city’s traffic flows at a time when real estate offerings are on the rise. These guidelines are currently under discussion.
The first dilemma faced by planners is the Paris-Lyon motorway (A6), which runs right through Lyon. The patchwork of local and through traffic functions of this artery has been a thorn in the city’s side for years, since it is heavily used by inhabitants of the city’s two largest suburbs to reach the city center from the south, and by residents farther north to access the Fourvière tunnel in the downtown area.
This problem could be eased by a bypass known as Contournement Autoroutier Ouest Lyonnais (COL), “a highway infrastructure that would connect to the A6 north of the Lyon beltway and to the A7 south of the Vienne beltway, and would divert through traffic away from Lyon to the west,” according to the highway department of the Ministry of Equipment, Transport and Housing. This would also improve the link from Saint Etienne and Roanne to the Saone/Rhone region.
The Lyon business community is also looking forward to realization of a project known as TOP (a stretch of road to the west of the Lyon beltway), whose construction will be coordinated with that of the bypass on the west side of the city (Contournement Ouest de Lyon). “The TOP project aims to ease beltway congestion and will have an indirect impact on all of Lyon’s districts. And east-west traffic will also be more fluid,” says Gilles Fourt, a technical consultant for the president of Greater Lyon.
The development of mass transit will (hopefully) take the strain off Lyon’s road network
The subway, bus, streetcar, trolleybus, TER (regional express trains), and bicycle are already well established alternatives to driving.
But in the interest of luring more drivers out of their cars and onto mass transit – particularly at this time of major urban restructuring – the city is revamping its mass transit system. The 2002-2008 master plan calls for the development of a streetcar and trolleybus system beyond the beltway and subway, and is investing in the creation of commuter parking lots with a view to promoting intermodality between cars and the city’s mass transit system.
“Our mass transit system must aim for excellence in order to appeal to customers, and must provide a viable alternative to the automobile, which creates congestion in urban centers. Thus we must imperatively develop the mass transit infrastructure at the city’s periphery,” comments Bernard Rivalta, president of Lyon’s mass transit authority SYTRAL.
Thus the Carré de Soie complex will have a 400-space commuter parking lot and new connections to the streetcar and metro systems. And southwest Lyon at Oullins (which is located on the opposite side of the Rhone) will be linked to the Gerland district by an extended subway line. The creation of a series of multimodal interfaces will round out this project, which is slated for completion in 2013 and will provide the Lyon Confluence project with a streetcar line extension.
And the railroad too...
The aforementioned objectives that were previously defined for urban mass transit also apply to rail networks. Hence eight years ago an interministerial regional development task force known as CIADT called for the “immediate realization of studies aimed at constructing a rail bypass for the Lyon area,” with a view to promoting goods transport and taking the strain off Lyon’s saturated main rail junction.
At the regional level, Lyon envisages the creation of a “Lyon-style RER [rapid transit rail system in Paris]” by involving neighboring regions. Toward this end, in 2009 a station stop will be inaugurated at Jean Macé in Lyon’s 7th arrondissement. “This will enable residents in the northern part of the Isère department and in southern section of Lyon to readily access the streetcar and metro systems.The master development plan also calls for construction of a series of commuter parking lots at Lyon’s train stations and beyond,” the city points out. The same goes for the Lyon-Givors and Mâcon-Vienne train lines, which will be integrated into REAL, a project that will optimize all rail services in the Lyon metropolitan area, mainly by modernizing stations that allow for multimodal transport.