Question 37791 — roads

Summary

Mr. Éric Bothorel draws the attention of the Minister of Ecological Transition to the imperfections of the current regulations intended to combat noise from road infrastructures. Articles R. 571-44 and R. 571-45 of the Environmental Code establish the principles of protection against noise for buildings adjacent to infrastructure projects or existing infrastructures to be developed or modified. All new road or existing road significantly modified (increase in emissions after works greater than 2 dB(A)) cannot exceed, night or day, determined noise impact thresholds on the facade of neighboring buildings. The owner of the infrastructure is therefore subject to an obligation to achieve results: he must ensure noise protection that complies with regulations. However, article R. 571-46 of the code of the environment expressly excludes certain work, including maintenance, from this protection system. Furthermore, for essentially budgetary reasons, certain departments use road maintenance techniques that are sometimes less expensive but generate greater pollution: noise pollution, increased fuel consumption and therefore carbon dioxide, increased tire wear and therefore microparticles. The use of certain coatings in fact cancels out the improvement obtained in terms of noise pollution by the standards imposed for engine noise and the friction of tires on the road. Consequently, small-scale works can result in a very significant increase in noise. This is for example the case when a coating is replaced by a surface wear coating. The noise difference between a draining coating and a surface wear coating with 10/14 aggregate is in fact estimated at 11 decibels, well beyond the decibels mentioned above. This situation also creates a risk of litigation: in the absence of a precise definition of the concept of maintenance, the administrative judge could reclassify work having such an impact as a significant modification, thus forcing communities to carry out work to comply with this limitation. Therefore, it seems necessary to evolve the legal framework to allow clearer and simpler implementation of environmental objectives. Several developments are possible in this regard: removing article R. 571-46 of the environmental code, which provides for exceptions to the taking of measures intended to prevent the operation of the infrastructure from creating excessive noise pollution; extend the noise reduction objective provided for in Article 15 of the law of December 31, 1992 on noise (less than 60 decibels) on all national and departmental roads and not only on those affected by noise black spots; review the notion of a noise black spot whose level, too high, is today set by a circular; take into account the consumption and wear of tires in the installation criteria of coatings by excluding the most polluting from national and departmental roads. In this context, he wishes to know the Government's intentions in this matter as well as its opinion on the proposals made above.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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