Driving down - avoid Besancon at all costs

For a change this year we drove down to Italy via Besancon  [avoiding most tolls by taking some good french non-motorways.]However - Besancon roads are in total chaos as they are digging them up to lay tram routes - this will take about 2 more years apparently.It took over 1 hour to travel the last 2 miles to our hotel, due to closures/diversions etc [the Tom Tom went into meltdown, so we reverted in the end to the old 'point and pray' system, that did work]Shame really, as its a great town [usually] for an overnight stop