Manon Espinasse

Transport infrastructure is a testament to permanence and evolution. The routes of Roman, medieval, and royal roads have provided the framework for today's road and highway networks. Considered essential to the functioning of our societies and economies today and promising for the future, highways are repaired, adapted, and regenerated to ensure their permanence. The paradigm of “transitions” (the political translation for implementing a desirable future in terms of change relative to planetary boundaries as set out in the Meadows Report) questions the terms of this permanence. Motorway infrastructure contributes to exceeding planetary boundaries and is itself exposed to the consequences of these exceedances. This requires changes in planning practices, a “greening” of infrastructure-territory relationships, or a diversification of motorways (motorways as a support for new forms of mobility, energy production, a vector for ecological corridors, etc.). These practices stem from precedents that gave rise to motorways and shaped motorway-territory relations. This doctoral research aims to examine the major changes in planning visions and actions with regard to motorway infrastructure from the 1950s to the present day, specifically in the Bordeaux metropolitan area. What place and role has motorway infrastructure played over time? What imaginaries guide the relationship between infrastructure and territory, and how can we interpret this in urban and motorway forms?
The research studies the motorway system and territory from both a material (forms, routes, etc.) and immaterial (actors, decisions, etc.) perspective, particularly through discursive and graphic representations.