Closed since March 2024 after a landslide caused by illegal construction work, Joseph-Durandy Avenue in Nice is finally reopening. Eighteen months later, it is a real relief for the residents.
“It’s a day of liberation”
These are the words of Mayor Christian Estrosi, present on site this Thursday to mark the reopening of Joseph-Durandy Avenue. On site, the emotion is palpable. Residents are finally getting back their avenue, a vital thoroughfare for the neighborhood’s life, closed since March 2024 after the collapse of a slope caused by illegal excavation work.
Cars are circulating again, buses are ready to resume their route, and the residents express a mixture of relief and pride. “We’ve been waiting for this for months, sometimes it felt like it would never end“, confides a resident who lives in close proximity to the construction site.
For a year and a half, they had to organize themselves differently: longer journeys, congested detour routes, difficult access for municipal services, delayed garbage collection. “It was a significant ordeal for all the residents,” acknowledges the mayor. Some even agreed to open their private roads so that vehicles could pass through. In return, the city committed to integrating this road into the public domain and renovating it, a gesture appreciated by the residents.
An exceptional project
Behind the celebration, there was the complexity of the procedure and the technical challenges. From March 20, 2024, the Metropolis commissioned a judicial expertise to intervene on private properties. Cost advanced by the community: 1.8 million euros to secure, contain, and rebuild. The final expert report allocates this amount to the two offenders.
The work, entrusted to the company Garelli, began in mid-November 2024 for ten months. Three major phases were undertaken to consolidate the area, secure a threatened water pipe, and stabilize 450 square meters of wall.
“It’s a technical feat,“ emphasizes the mayor. Workers had to operate in a confined space, in the heart of a populated neighborhood, while ensuring the safety of the residents and continuity of networks. On Wednesday, the final step was completed. Some finishing touches remain to be completed, but the essential has been achieved: the avenue is once again passable, and most importantly, safe.
Starting Monday, lines 60 and 61 will pass through Durandy again, and the school bus route will resume its usual path. The September start of school will take place on a renovated road, now two-way. A new bus line is even planned to enhance the neighborhood’s service, proving that the reopening marks not just a return to normalcy, but an improvement in traffic conditions.
“We are reaching the end of a painful chapter. Let’s see this day as a happy one,“ says Sébastien Poggi, director of transportation. The mayor, for his part, prefers to speak of a collective victory: “My primary duty as mayor is to protect my fellow citizens and enable them to move freely.”
For the residents, this Wednesday will remain a special date. Like a liberation, in both a literal and figurative sense…
