Secondary Roads of France

History

The history of the secondary roads is of course closely related to the history of the departments.

1789- The creation of the departments, direct heritage of the Revolution.

The department was born with the French revolution, on December 22nd, 1789. The word " Département" comes from the verb " Départir" who means, as old French, to divide. The size of the departments was calculated so that the chief town can be reached of all the points of the territory in only one day of horse.

The departments at the time are equipped with a departmental council. This deliberating assembly appoints her president and a permanent executive directory. France is then cut out in 83 organized departments each one around a chief town so that more than one day ago of horse to rejoin the place chief since the points furthest away from the departmental territory.

In 1800, the organization is altered, the general advice appears. A prefect, a council of prefecture and a general advice are set up in each department. The prefect holds only the executive power leaving to the general advice his role of deliberating assembly.

1813: Creation of the secondary roads

It is the decree of December 16th, 1811 which institutes truly what one has habit to call the great roadway system, placed under the authority of the public Ministry of Labor. The article 1st of this decree stipulates that all the roads of the Empire are divided into imperial roads and secondary roads. The imperial roads are of three classes,

the first class: it is those which, on the basis of Paris, lead in one of the ends of the Empire.
the second class: It is those which, without passing by the capital, are however regarded as being of a general utility.
the third class gathers those which are more particularly useful for the localities that they cross.

The secondary roads are all the main roads raising before of the denomination of roads of third class.

The trunk roads, whose opening is not possible that after an administrative survey and the promulgation of a law, have their maintenance entirely with the load of the State whereas that of the secondary roads remains with the load of the departments and the territorial collectivities. Their construction requires only, after an administrative survey, a deliberation of the general advice and a decree. The trunk roads as the secondary roads receive a number.

Following the decree of December 16th, 1811 which envisages creation and a new classification for the secondary roads appears, by decree of January 7th, 1813, the official table of the first secondary roads.

Under the Restoration is established state-statistics of the royal roads of France in 1824 pennies the direction of Louis Becquey (1760-1849), managing director of the Bridges and Chaussées and Mines. This state informs us in a way detailed about the state of the roads.

Open roads

1836 - creation of the local roadway system

The law of May 21st, 1836, known as of Thiers-Montalivet, creates the local roadway system broken up into two categories:

the not classified communal roadway system (country lanes, communal roadway system) whose construction and maintenance remain entirely with the load of the communes.
classified local roads (ways of great communication CGC, ways of shared interest C.I.C and local roads ordinary) managed thanks to the subsidies of the General advice but placed under the control of the prefect.

This law also imposes the obligatory maintenance of the ways by special services or centimes. It distinguishes the ways from great communication which could be subsidized on the departmental funds and creates the agents voyers.

The effort continued under Napoleon III, who wrote in 1861 “the rural communes, neglected so a long time, must have a big part in subsidies of the State; because the improvement of the campaigns is even more useful than the transformation of the cities. It is especially necessary to vigorously follow up the completion of the local roads; it is the greatest service to be returned to agriculture”. From where the law of July 11th, 1868 relative to this completion, with subsidies and possibility of loans, and finally the law of March 12th, 1880, voter of new resources extending the network a little. So that before the end of the 19th century century, this network comprised: 135000 km of ways of great communication: 75000 km of ways of shared interest and: 254000 km of ordinary local roads. With the trunk roads and departmental, one had thus obtained well the objective a long time dreamed of one kilometer way per square kilometer of territory, which made the French network densest, if not the first, world.

1871 - The department becomes a community

The department which is an administrative unit of the State becomes a territorial collectivity by the law of August 10th. The departmental commission is created. This commission ensures the permanence of the departmental assembly and control the prefectoral administration, but the prefect remains the executive of the department on the General advice.

1930 - The apogee of the national highway network

The law of April 16th, 1930 authorizes the classification in the national roadway system of 40.000 km roads and ways belonging to the departmental and communal roadway system and thus defines what one called at the time the " new réseau" , in opposition to l'" old réseau" who had remained stable in his layout, since the decree of September 8th, 1811.

1938 - Appearance of the departmental ways

The Order in Council of June 14th, 1938 gathers the Ways of Great Communication and Ways of Shared interest with the secondary roads to form the category of the “departmental ways”, property of the department and then ceasing being the responsibility of the communes.

1940 - Fastening of the local service to the service of the Highways Departments

The decree of October 15th, 1940 organizes the fastening of the local service to the service of the Highways Departments. The very short decree of the Vichy government does not make it possible to realize of the reasons of this reorganization. Always it is that this one, not called into question to the release, will perdurera until the installation of the laws of decentralization. Until this expiry, ordinary services of the Highways Departments, then departmental managements of the equipment ensure a unified management of the highway networks departmental and national.

1972 - First great transfer of trunk roads

In 1972, the State transferred: 53000 kilometers of trunk roads without any clause of handing-over on level in the departmental public domain.

1982 - Decentralization - First phase

The law of Decentralization of March 2nd, 1982, transfers the exercise from the departmental capacity of the prefect to the president of the general advice. This law recognizes at the general advice the full exercise of his attributions. Since this date, the department is managed by two bodies: a deliberating body (the departmental assembly), and an executive body (the president of the general advice). Competences of the general advice are increased and new for the majority. They touch with the daily life of the citizens.

It is only with the law of December 2nd, 1992 that the Décentralisation will relate to the management of the trunk roads. This law leads to an internal reorganization of many DDE (potentially: 25000 agents are concerned) in order to identify the parts of service exclusively intervening on behalf of the department. Still it is not a question of a transfer, but there is well “partition” (term employed in the DDE) of the services, resulting in the creation of departmental subdivisions. The agents of these subdivisions are under the functional authority of the president of the general advice and under the line authority of the State. A hybrid statute of double authority which could not be perennial.

2004 - Decentralization - Transfer of the trunk roads of local interest

Beyond the political will to go at the end of a step of decentralization started in 1982 in multiple fields, several considerations lead to a transfer of the two-thirds of the national highway network to the departments:

with the development of the highway network, of many trunk roads does not have any more that one local interest and it is more logical to manage with more close these roads that in a centralized way;
the departments, but also the areas are the principal financial contributors of the installation of these trunk roads, through the plan contracts;

Management of the secondary roads

It could be interesting to approach in specific articles the evolution since their creation until our days:

of the methods of management of the secondary roads (classification, downgrading, alignment, etc),
of the methods of maintenance;
of the actors of this management and this maintenance: the agents voyers, controllers, sergeants, roadmenders to the engineers, agents of exploitation and other bodies technical and administrative of today.

Characteristics of the departmental highway network

After January 1st, 2006, the overall length of the departmental highway network is established with www km being distributed by departments as follows:

|- align=" left" valign=" top" style=" make-size: 85%; " | width=" 17%" | Metropolitan France :
01 Ain
02 Aisne
03 To combine
04 Alp-of-High-Provence
05 Hautes-Alpes
06 the Alpes-Maritimes
07 Ardeche
08 the Ardennes
09 Ariège
10 Paddle
11 Aude
12 Aveyron
13 Rhone delta
14 Calvados
15 Cantal
16 Charente
17 Charente-Maritime
18 Expensive
19 Corrèze
2A Corse-du-Sud
2B Haute-Corse
21 Coast-with Or
22 Coast-with Armor
23 Creuse
24 the Dordogne
25 Doubs
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| width=" 17%" | 26 Drome
27 the Eure
28 Eure-et-Loir
29 Finistere
30 Gard
31 Haute-Garonne
32 Gers
33 the Gironde
34 Herault
35 Ille-et-Vilaine
36 Indre
37 Indre-et-Loire
38 Isere
39 the Jura
40 Moors
41 Loir-et-Cher
42 the Loire
43 Haute-Loire
44 Loire-Atlantique
45 Loiret
46 Batch
47 Lot-et-Garonne
48 Lozere
49 Maine-et-Loire
50 Handle
51 the Marne
52 Haute-Marne
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| width=" 17%" | 53 Mayenne
54 Meurthe-et-Moselle
55 Meuse
56 Morbihan
57 the Moselle
58 Nievre
59 Northern
60 Oise
61 Flowering ash
62 Pas-de-Calais
63 Puy-de-Dôme
64 Yrénées-Atlantiques
65 Hautes-Pyrénées
66 the Eastern Pyrenees
67 the Low-Rhine
68 Haut-Rhin
69 the Rhone
70 Haute-Saône
71 Saône-et-Loire
72 the Sarthe
73 Savoy
74 Haute-Savoie
75 Paris
76 Seine-Maritime
77 Seine-et-Marne
78 Yvelines
79 Two-Sevres
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| width=" 17%" | 80 Somme
81 Tarn
82 Tarn-et-Garonne
83 VAr
84 Vaucluse
85 the Vendée
86 Vienna
87 High-Vienna
88 the Vosges
89 Yonne
90 Territory of Belfort
91 the Essonne
92 Hauts-de-Seine
93 Seine-Saint-Denis
94 the Valley-of-Marne
95 Val-d'Oise

Departments of overseas :
971 Guadeloupe
972 Martinique
973 Guyana
974 Meeting
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Roads by departments

The cards by departments below have vocation to present a vision of the road, all categories confused (highways, trunk roads, secondary roads, communal ways) through the aspects: cartography, lengths, history, events old and recent.

Internal bonds

Trunk road of France

Sources

"Historic atlas of the roads of France" - Georges Reverdy - Presses of the ENPC - 1986,
History of the Departments - General advice of Aisne
Code of the local roads and the secondary roads - Auguste Gisclard - 1882 (on Gallica)

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