The Col de Bussang (Bussang Pass) is one of the busiest passes in France's Vosges mountains. Located in the Grand Est region of France at an altitude of 727 m, it links Lorraine and Alsace via Route Nationale 66 (also European Route 512). The two communes on the Lorraine side of the pass are Bussang, and the Alsace side is Urbès. The ridge crossing at Bussang is one of the main historical passes that have crossed the Vosges since ancient times, alongside the Col du Bonhomme, the Col du Donon, and the Col de Saverne.
The importance of vehicular traffic over the Bussang pass has grown steadily since the last centuries of the Middle Ages, with the intensification of road and trade links between Flanders and Italy. The passage from the Vosges massif to the south is, therefore, part of a road network based on a so-called Lotharingian Europe, but by no means exclusive to the Flanders-Italy junction. To avoid climbing the passes of the southern Vosges, other trade routes took in the Alsatian plain or the Franche-Comté passes. The flourishing forestry and mining activities of the 15th to 17th centuries in the Upper Moselle Valley at the foot of the Ballon d'Alsace reinforced the local traffic around the Bussang pass, where raw material sites and processing factories were concentrated. The industrial and agropastoral activities of the Upper Moselle also encouraged the immigration of skilled workers from German-speaking countries on the Roman side of the pass, such as miners, marcaires from Switzerland, Alsace, and Germany, and coal miners from Sweden, the Tyrol and the Black Forest in the mountainous area between the Col du Bussang and the Col des Charbonniers.
Defourny's Trésor des Chartes de Lorraine does not speak in terms of cols but rather of “passages” or “pertuis” in the village of Vôge.Caution should be exercised when writing the word "Vosges" in the form "Vôge". Indeed, the Vôge is today a non-homogeneous cultural and geographical region whose territory does not correspond to the former bailiwick of Vosges, which was much larger. There were no typographical standards in the official writings of the Duchy of Lorraine: the current word "Vosges" is also found in the singular "Vosge". Thierry Alix, the intendant of the duchy in the 16th century, chose the plural spelling. For a contemporary reader, it is objectively easier to identify the word "Vosges" as a historical region by referring to the current department. Situated at the crossroads of the Romanesque cultural sphere on the one hand and the Germanic world on the other, the Col de Bussang remains an ancestral frontier between various entities: sovereign states, temporal abbatial or canonical principalities, archdioceses, or linguistic areas. However, its vocation as a passageway has always outweighed its function as a natural frontier.
Toponymy The use of the term “Col de Bussang” is relatively recent. On either side of the Franco-German language boundary, we used to say or read:
For the French-speaking part (including the Vosges dialect): passage de Taye, pertuis d'EstayeLétraye is an orthographic variant of the locality Lestraye, or Lettraye, located in the commune of Ramonchamp. The Roman road Bâle-Metz passed through this hamlet, where a toll station was established and later relinquished by Duke Ferry III of Lorraine in 1255 in favor of the canonesses of Remiremont. In Ferry III's act, the toll location near the pass was spelled "Estaie". See: (Perthus, Perthuix, Potieu), col de l'Estaye, pertuis de Taye or de la Taye, côte du Taye; For the German-speaking part (including the Alsatian dialect): Steige zur Linden (Steig zür Linde), D'Steig,In Eduard Grucker, Die Vogesen, ed. Velhagen & Klasing, 1908, we read the following extract: “Over the deep cut of the Col de Bussang (720 m, formerly the path or pass to the Linden).” Pass zur Linden, der Bussang-Sattel (or der Sattel). The toponyms of the settlements below the pass on either side, Bussang or Urbès, appear visibly little or not at all in the first names of the pass. As is the case for other regions of the Vosges massif on the Alsatian side, the German-speaking part insists on the topographical characteristic: the term “Steige” designates a “hill” or “climb”. The same name is used for the Col de Saverne (German: Zaberner Steige),There are still two streets in the commune of Saverne that bear this name: “La Côte de Saverne” which is the extension of the D1006 from the town sign and “Rue de la côte” just before starting the climb of the pass – “Les rues de Saverne,” on google/maps (accessed May 31, 2014).Segment No. 21 of the Atlas de Trudaine for the généralité de Metz, dated 1745 to 1780, is titled: "Map of the road from Metz to Strasbourg up to the bottom of Holderlock between Phaltzbourg and the slope of Saverne where the généralité of Metz ends." See: . the Col de Steige at Offwiller between Moselle and Bas-Rhin. In fact, for German speakers, the name Steige has little to do with mountainous regions: in south and south-west German, it mainly refers to a steep road.The equivalent in central Germany is "Stich." The term Berg (mountain) or Höhe (height) can also be read in lowland landscapes. Unlike a pass, it is not necessarily intended as a means of crossing a mountain into the neighboring valley. Steigen, for example, is common in the hilly or steeply sloping regions of south-central Germany, where they are used to cross from the valley floor into the surrounding higher terrain.
The term Sattel (German for saddle), on the other hand, clearly refers to the mountain pass's vocation as a “horse's saddle” structure formed in the mountains by the intersection of a ridge line and two talwegs on either side. The narrow indentation between the Tête des Allemands (1,014 m) and the Tête des Russiers (1,187 m) is visible from Lorraine. German-speaking denominations frequently add zur Linden: “from gold to lime trees”. In regional Lorraine French, passes are commonly referred to as “pertuis”, “plain” or “passage”. We spoke of the pertuis d'EstayePronounce it like the French word “taille” and not like the word “taie”. or the Passage de la Taye. In the Vosges patois language of the Saint-Dié and Remiremont areas, the regional terms for “pertuis”, “potieu” or “pètu” were commonly used to designate a hole, a pass or a narrow passage in the mountain. As with “Steige”, the term “côte” (side) is often used in 19th-century writings. The first prefect of the Vosges, Henri-Zacharie Desgouttes, describes the Col de Bussang without mentioning the word “col” once: “The Moselle has its source in the arrondissement of Remiremont, at the foot of the Côte du Taye, whose highest point, where two hills meet, forms the boundary between the Vosges and Haut-Rhin departments. In contrast, the emphasis is on two hills that meet at the pass.
Geography Location
The Bussang Pass is located in the Vosges mountains, on the western side in the commune of Bussang in the Vosges department, and on the eastern side in the commune of Urbès in the Haut-Rhin département, entirely within the Grand Est region. It leads into the upper Thur valley towards Thann.
It is dominated by Grand Drumont (1,200 m) to the north and tête des Neufs-Bois (1,228 m) to the south. It links the Moselle Valley (Trier, Luxembourg, Metz, Épinal) with the Rhine Valley and its main tributary, the Ill (Mulhouse, Basel).
On a more local level, once you've passed the commune of Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle just before Bussang in the Ballons des Hautes-Vosges community of communes, there's no other route than to continue towards the Bussang Pass on the RN 66. At Saint-Maurice, you can take the RD465 to the Col du Ballon d'Alsace, heading for Belfort or Masevaux on the RD 466. The roads in this part of the Vosges massif run up against the ridges at the bottom of the wooded valley. Apart from the main road, there is only one forestry road open to traffic, providing access to the farmhouse inn at the foot of Drumont.
Road traffic In 2016, average annual daily traffic on the Bussang-Fellering section, with the pass at its center, amounted to 5,500 vehicles on the Lorraine side and 3,600 vehicles on the Alsatian side at Urbès. The proportion of heavy goods vehicles is estimated at 21% on the Lorraine side and 17% on the Alsatian side. The number of vehicles per day on this section of the RN 66 has not changed significantly since 2010. In contrast, the number of vehicles on the Alsatian side of the pass has increased by 36% since 2008. All-vehicle road traffic between 2006 and 2008 recorded at the permanent station on the Bussang Pass shows: 4,118 in 2006, 4,099 in 2007, and 4,024 in 2008. The decline in HGV traffic on the Bussang Pass began in the early 2000s, with a 37.4% drop in the daily number of HGVs between 2004 and 2008 (from 1,336 to 962) Since the construction of new expressways such as the RN 57 or the A4 freeway at the Col de Saverne, the routes used by HGVs to link Lorraine and Alsace have changed significantly, passing either to the north or to the south and avoiding crossing the crests.
Average daily traffic on the RN 66 therefore falls as you approach or cross the pass (8,500 at Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle, 5,500 before Bussang), then rises very rapidly on the Alsace section between Fellering and Thann (20,250 vehicles). The possibility of branching off onto the RD 465 at Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle towards Belfort reduces average daily traffic by 35% on the section towards the Bussang Pass. Of all the passes crossing the Vosges, the Bussang Pass remains well-frequented given the general downward trend in crossings, with a variation of -1.8%, in line with the average for the entire Vosges mountains. At the Saverne toll plaza, the fall was 1.6% before 2010. The two passes with the biggest declines are the Bonhomme (-7.9%) and Sainte-Marie (-7.6%) passes, while on the RN 59 at the Lièpvre station, there was a 2% increase following the reopening of the Maurice-Lemaire tunnel.
Hydrography
Just before the ascent to the pass, the Moselle forms a fork that can be seen on the sketch of the stubble fields below:
to the northeast, the valley of the Ruisseau de la Hutte, separated from the pass by the Haut du Charat, 996 m; to the southeast, the valley of the Sèchenat stream, separated from the pass by the tête des Allemands, 1,014 m, and fed by the Devant drop; to the east in the center, the Moselle River, whose source is immediately fed by other springs named Fontaine des BôculonsBôculon, beuquillon, means “lumberjack” in Vosges dialect. and Fontaine Saint-Louis respectively at the foot of Drumont, 1,200 m.
Above the pass is Etang Jean at the foot of the Côte des Russiers.
After Bussang, on the way to the pass and the Taye annex, the road and street names are quite evocative, reminding us that there was a great deal of thermal activity all around the pass: “avenue des sources” or “route des sources”. It was customary for the “bathers” of Plombières-les-Bains to go to the Ballon d'Alsace and the thermal waters of Bussang. The sources of ferruginous mineral water should not be confused with the source of the Moselle. The first prefect of the Vosges, Henri-Zacharie Desgouttes, explains in his “Tableau statistique des Vosges” that “the Moselle has its source in the arrondissement of Remiremont, at the foot of the Taye hill”. The springs were first tapped in 1705. A hotel was built, as well as a chapel, a promenade, and a bathhouse. All the buildings at the springs near the pass were burnt down in 1790, and it was decided not to rebuild them. From then on, the only activity was to sell bottled water.