By David Saint-Sernin
Published on 16 Mar 21 @ 7:04 am
–
Monday March 16, 2020. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, speaks: “Tomorrow from noon and for a period of two weeks at least, our trips will be greatly reduced …”.
For Toulouse as for all of France, it is the beginning of first confinement and the opening of a parenthesis which no one can then imagine that a year later, it will still not be closed.
The city’s trajectory brutally challenged
For the past year, Toulouse has been running at reduced speed. Some sectors are in slow motion, others at a standstill. No more hangouts in restaurants, aperitifs in bars, forgotten cultural evenings …
In the space of a year, the habits of Toulouse residents have been profoundly changed. But beyond the individual cases, it is the entire trajectory of the city which has been brutally called into question.
Toulouse, the European capital of aeronautics, the one on which the sun should never set economically, the city whose economic and demographic boom made other French agglomerations green with envy, had to lower its wings. For a year, the Pink City has been learning to live differently. Here is what has changed.
An economical lighthouse at the peak that goes out
This is the big problem for Toulouse at the moment. Aeronautics is Toulouse’s economic flagship but also one of the most affected sectors worldwide. Air traffic is pretty darn slow, airlines at bay and aircraft orders are bound to take a huge hit.
Behind Airbus, the entire ecosystem plunged into crisis with a 33.4% drop in activity for industrial companies in the sector. A sector which has lost 10% of its employees despite the implementation of aid.
While it was only a question of hiring to respond to orders that were only increasing, Toulouse must now learn to live with social plans and a sluggish sector job market.
Development airport in the desert
A deserted Toulouse-Blagnac airport. It is one of the images of the year in Toulouse. Used to seeing the density of flights increase in recent years, the airport has seen the passenger traffic decrease by 67%. 3.1 million people passed through Toulouse airport in 2020 compared to 9,620,224 passengers in 2019.
Unsurprisingly, it is international traffic that has been the most marked by the crisis, with the closure of borders: it is down 75% compared to 2019. In comparison, the breakage is limited for domestic traffic, with a drop of “only” 60%.
Sold to Eiffage a few weeks before the start of the pandemic, the entire development of the airport must now be reconsidered.
A brand new exhibition center with no activity
Its opening was to be one of the major events of the year 2020. It symbolized Toulouse’s national influence and its ability to rise to the rank of other metropolises in the organization of major events and trade fairs. The new exhibition center (MEETT), located in Aussonne, has never been able to take off.
–“The new convention center which will host international congresses in Toulouse will remain dormant until 2021, because the organizers are very reluctant to reschedule this type of event. The hope is that this activity will pick up well from 2022 and 2023, explained Thibault Vassal, managing director of Toulouse Events, the company which manages the MEETT, at the beginning of September 2020, a month during which had to be inaugurated the mastodon.
March 2021, the recovery is still not visible …
Critical projects postponed
The covid also slowed down some major projects that were to accelerate the transformation of Toulouse. The timing of the 3e underground line had already been delayed before the pandemic, but the latter further slowed the process.
The 3e line will be delivered at the end of 2028, compared to 2025 before the pandemic. A delay recorded because of the financial losses recorded by the City of Toulouse, the Metropolis and Tisséo, ie, “more than 320 million euros” over three years.
Other projects have been spread over time: Toulouse-style Central Park, the Music Star on the former Saint-Michel prison.
So many delays which will penalize the image of Toulouse and the daily life of Toulouse residents in a city which remains attractive despite everything.
Its dynamic city center at a standstill
Toulouse, before March 2020, it was of course a flourishing economy but it was also a full social life, especially in the city center.
A year after the start of the first confinement, the heart of the Pink City beats much less quickly. In some ways, the hyper-center is even difficult to see. Evidenced by the crossroads of Place Wilson where shops are almost all closed.
The complete closure of cultural venues since March 2020 has also hurt a lot like that of restaurants and bars. A strong point of Toulouse’s attractiveness, especially among students, will the city center be able to regain its vigor at the end of the crisis?
–A less loaded device
An overloaded device was Toulouse’s big problem. It is not dispelled …
However, with the implementation of restrictive measures and teleworking, there are fewer people riding on the Toulouse ring.
Campus trafic has thus estimated that daily traffic on the ring road at the start of 2021 has fallen slightly compared to last year, just before the pandemic.
“The average daily traffic appears a little lower than that of last year at the same time, ie before the pandemic. This drop in traffic is of the order of 4% ”, indicated Toulouse Métropole a few days ago.
Hospitals and clinics that learn to work together
To cope with a changing health situation, health establishments in the Toulouse metropolitan area, both private and public, had to urgently review their ways of working. With the mobilization of nursing staff, these establishments have reorganized themselves internally, in particular at Toulouse University Hospital. But they have also learned to pool their resources.
To stem the surplus of patients in Occitania, the public hospital and private clinics have worked hand in hand with a single objective: that each establishment participate in the immense effort to take care of the sick. This had never happened in Toulouse.
Less pollution, during containment
This was one of the only bright spots in the coronavirus crisis last spring. A year ago, air pollution reached its lowest level since the first measures by ATMO Occitanie in 1996.
–In a report produced at the end of March 2020, the independent regional body made an edifying observation: the concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the air had fallen dramatically since the start of confinement. Since then, it has picked up a bit, but in recent months, the crisis has at least broken this bad curve.
–
