Securing Nice Promenade des Anglais
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
The “Promenade des Anglais” project is a perfect illustration of the motto of the New European Bauhaus “Beautiful - sustainable – together”, combining preservation of cultural and natural heritage, aesthetics, innovation, usefulness, feeling of protection, liveability, inclusion, but also identity and ownership by citizens. The city of Nice had to find innovative ways to secure this specific public space, with the objective of implementing a security by design approach.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Other Funds
Internal Security Fund 2019
Description of the project
Summary
The 14th of July 2016 at 22:34 PM, a truck went 2km on the iconic Promenade des Anglais in 2 minutes and 17 seconds during the fireworks. The peculiarities of this attack in Nice is that the Promenade des Anglais is a place of strong attachment with a linear spatial shape, a place built in relation to an open landscape, a place of ambulation and a place of identity: "The Prom". The attack occurred in a very special moment of national unity around the popular and festive events of the 14th of July and caused 86 victims including children.
The city of Nice had to find innovative ways to secure this specific public space, with the objective of implementing a security by design approach while improving the landscape, but also to reassure citizens and all the international community shocked by the event. The city also had to deal with the social impacts of the attack of Nice.
In his address to present the new European Agenda against terrorism (09.12.2020), the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Promoting the European way of life Margaritis SCHINAS has congratulated the City of Nice for its exemplary approach: "The city of Nice offers a relevant model of security-oriented urban planning. These are the kinds of projects we want to promote and support with European funds."
The world famous Promenade des Anglais is the symbol of the city of Nice and the French Riviera. Before the attack of the 14th of July 2016, the Promenade des Anglais was already altered and moved away from its first use of "promenade along the seaside" and a global requalification project had been decided in 2015. The attack obliged the city to include in this project new equipments to secure definitively this public place against vehicle-ramming attacks. The city of Nice decided to lead a “security by design” approach in order to integrate security equipments in the nature-based landscape of the Promenade des Anglais. This implied to conceive specific security equipments.
Key objectives for sustainability
The city also wanted to build a reassuring landscape and to deal with the social impacts of the attack. The works also include the improvement of the landscape with the integration of the vegetation component on the south sidewalk by creating a planted area between the traffic lanes and the "soft mode” space dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists and the improvement of the coexistence between pedestrians and cyclists by the layout of the bike path along the sidewalk.The lighting equipments have been replaced by energy saving ones.
Concerning the sustainability, the lifetime of the equipment is about 100 years but the equipment will be amortized written-off in 15 years. The bollards of the extremities are stronger than the others in order to be in capacity of retrieving the energy of a possible intrusive vehicle without destructing the other bollards. The intrusive vehicle will be stopped in the bike path without penetrating the pedestrian area. The retractable bollards are fitted with access control equipment that is also able to read license plates. When a vehicle asks for entering the area, the urban supervision center checks immediately the license plate of the vehicle and the identity of the driver. If both are authorized, the bollards will open. The authorizations have to be asked about one month before. In case of power failure, the retractable bollards remain in high position (contrary to the traditional bollards) to secure all the areas.
Besides, the 5,3 km of the Promenade des Anglais are split into areas, each one is confined by transversal bollards (2 are retractable and connected to the access control system and 2 are removable in case of a special event). Only between 4AM and 8AM, all the areas are opened to enable the deliveries. The anti-intrusion system put in place has been tested: it allows the retention of a 19 tons going at a speed of 50 km/h under 20 ° of inclination (most unfavorable angle).
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Concerning the aesthetics, palm trees have been planted along the installation. The vegetation component has been integrated on the south sidewalk by creating a planted area between the traffic lanes and the "soft mode” space dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists.
Coexistence between pedestrians and cyclists has been improved by the layout of the bike path along the sidewalk. The removal of parking along the central island increases the visual attractiveness of the place. Besides, the renovation of the whole pavement of the south sidewalk, the renewal of lighting equipments with energy saving ones, the rehabilitation and renewal of all existing furniture (benches, blue chairs ...) and the refurbishment of the alcoves of the beach operators have completed this objective to improve the quality of the landscape. Besides, following the achievement of these requalification works, in January 2020, the French Government took the decision to submit the nomination of Nice for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Indeed, the requalification works have strongly improved the aesthetical aspect of the Ppromenade des Anglais. This nomination will be examined by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee at its July 2021 session.
Key objectives for inclusion
As for inclusion, the city of Nice is at the head of a European project called PACTESUR[1] (cofinanced by the Internal Security Fund) which aims at securing public spaces against all the threats and especially terrorist attacks. In this framework, the city of Nice manages coordinates 13 other European cities and a committee of 14 experts including security experts as well as urbanists, artists and sociologists working especially of the social impacts of the attack of the 14th of July. According to their One of the first conclusions, of their works is that, as in the city of Nice there is no specific place dedicated to the victims of the attack, this security equipment of security is perceived by many survivors and citizens as the a sort of memorial of the attack. This opens new perspectives for security equipments that could also hold social or cultural values.
[1] https://www.pactesur.eu/
Results in relation to category
The impacts of the project are really positive. Feedbacks from tourists and citizens are both very satisfied, both have a feeling of safety and came back without apprehension on the Promenade des Anglais. After the attack, the promenade des Anglais had been deserted. With this new equipment, the place is once again occupied by citizens and tourists. The general perception is that the value of the Ppromenade des Anglais has been highlighted enhanced by the works.
How Citizens benefit
In the framework of the PACTESUR project, a team of 22 students from the local Sustainable Design School have been associated to the assessment of the project. The students of the Sustainable Design Schoolschool are educated to obtain their five-years degree to become designers in sustainable innovation. They have visited the equipments of the Promenade des Anglais. Then, during two weeks, they went on site at various times of the day and the night to interview the public using this public space (about 50 persons). The results of this investigation were quite interesting: most of the interviewees had a really positive opinion of the equipment and of the way the city of Nice is secured. A few of them would have preferred that this safety equipment would have been completed by training equipments for sports or cultural areas on the Promenade des Anglais. The experts and associated cities of PACTESUR project were also invited for a Local Governance Workshop organized in Nice to visit the equipment, learn about the equipment set up by the city of Nice and debate around the best practices and opportunities for improvement. This enabled to deepen our know-how of security in crowded urban spaces.
Innovative character
The project not only presents innovative means of securing public spaces, but also innovative perception of security equipmentsequipment integrated in public spaces, while preserving their openness, beauty and liveability. The topic of giving artistic value to security equipments begins to interest more and more stakeholders. And, in this case, the topic of adding a cultural/ memorial value to security equipments goes still beyond this idea of an added artistic value.
This project is showcased as a model in the framework of the EU Urban Agenda Partnership on “Security in Public spaces”.
