“You just have to go home by bike”: at Sète station, the struggle of cyclists stuck due to high traffic

Une cinquantaine de personnes sont restées bloquées à quai dimanche 12 mai dernier, pour cause de grande affluence. Midi Libre – KELMAN MARTI

Durant le week-end de l’Ascension, un couple de cyclistes et des dizaines d’autres sont restés bloqués en gare de Sète pour cause de grande affluence.

They had come to enjoy the charms of the Canal du Midi by bike. Yann Guillot and his wife will ultimately not keep good memories of their time on the singular island. At issue: setbacks at Sète station due to too many crowds during the Ascension weekend.

"We arrived an hour early to anticipate the crowd", replaces the cyclist from Clermont-Ferrand . "There was already a lot of crowds and when the 11 h 09 train for Narbonne arrived, 15 minutes late, around fifty cyclists were waiting with their bikes to board."

"Lack of anticipation"

Already full, the train was only able to accommodate a few people, leaving dozens of others on the platform. "It’this lack of anticipation for a bridge weekend" is incredible, deplores Yann Guillot. This is even more so when we know that the train driver, magnanimously, advised them to "return to Narbonne by bike"…

Contacted by the user, the SNCF declares "to regret these difficulties", due, according to it, to at an exceptional "affluence". "As the liO TER Occitanie tickets are valid for one day and without reservation (if the fare allows), it is difficult to predict the influx of travelers from the different TER trains< /em>. When the limit is reached, people who can no longer board are invited to borrow the next LiO TER."