Until August 19, 2025, the A1 motorway was under construction in the Lille-Paris direction, in the Ronchin sector and the junction with the A25 from Dunkirk. A very frequented axis at the entrance to the capital of Flanders which needed a significant renovation.
The A1 highway deserted … a strange feeling. Unusual. A few hundred meters further, a deaf noise prevents any normal conversation. Not a second to lose, the workers are busy, many.
The asphalt of the roadway is being renovated. It had to be scraped over 22 centimeters before putting a new one. A titanic project carried out by the interdepartmental management of the northern roads. Thirteen million euros were put on the table to restore one of the busiest roads in France.
The asphalt of the roadway is being redone.
•
© J. Vasco / FTV
Nathalie Degryse, Director Dir Nord explains that “It is a very large project that lives up to the work to be carried out. We run over five kilometers, five lanes. Deep work up to 22 centimeters. And then, all the works of art, ancient, who needed to be renovated because there had been no in -depth interview for a long time “.
What Bertrand Gaume, prefect of Hauts-de-France confirms: “It has been decades that such a site had not taken place on the common section of the A1 motorway and at 25. This site was essential on the one hand for the safety of the works, the safety of the roadway, the safety of road users. (…) We can clearly see that there are flows of flows which have very strong mechanical constraints on the works that made these works. Who by their weight, shears, smashes the road “.
The workers take turns 7 days a week on the site.
•
© J. Vasco / FTV
As normal, every day, 100,000 vehicles circulate on this axis, including 13,000 heavy goods vehicles.
As the highway is completely closed to traffic, the agents will take advantage of it to also change the traffic signs, the safety slides and renovate the bridges. Marie Calio, project manager at the DIR Nord specifies:“Six bridges are being resumed. We redo the waterproofing, we redo the retention devices on the structure, we take advantage of them overall to receive a future traffic which is quite dense on the sector”.
Two years ago, it was Paris-Lille meaning that had a beauty. Given the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the second phase of work has been postponed. A plan of work planned with the prefecture confirms Bertrand Gaume: “We knew that by attacking in the wake of the Tour de France, we would have ten days difficult at the beginning, until the moment when the bulk of the holidays will leave. (…) We can clearly see that traffic will start to decrease and in the middle of this week we will undergo a second decay which will bring you until August 20 “, date of the announced end of the work, before the return of the last vacationers.
Two weeks have already passed and the hourglass of time is relentless. The teams remain four weeks to finish the repair of the tracks. For the time being, everyone says that deadlines should be respected. The workers are busy on the site seven days a week. “It advances very well, we have benefited from favorable weather”, Confirms Nathalie Degryse, the director of the Dir Nord.
Marie Calio assures that these works, certainly embarrassing for motorists, will allow the highway to stay in good condition for a long time. “The roadway, the upper layer is around twenty years, but the rest is 30 to 50 years old, so that we can leave users alone for a very long time and come back that very punctually resume the surface”, says the project manager.