It had been expected for months. The State and the Ile-de-France region signed, Wednesday, December 20, a memorandum of understanding to finance transport projects in the first region of France, faced with the challenges of the aging of its network and the arrival of Grand Paris Express.
It is “Europe’s most ambitious transport plan”reacted on the regional president, Valérie Pécresse (Les Républicains), during the signing in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis), with the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, of the memorandum of understanding for the mobility component of the State plan contract -region (CPER), which should be completed in the summer of 2024.
This new five-year plan provides for 8.4 billion euros of investments over the years 2023-2027, including 3.7 billion provided by the region, 3 billion by the State and 1.7 billion by local authorities and stakeholders. transport (RATP, SNCF, IDFM).
“Four years late”
The approved protocol is a “provisional document” incoming “four years late” after having been “postponed from 2020” and the health crisis, noted the communist opposition.
If his signature was “long delayed”recognized Clément Beaune, the agreement will allow the region, which controls transport, and the State to respond to the “network doubling” of the Paris metro “by 2030”.
The Grand Paris Express, this supermetro project born under the leadership of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, must finally come to fruition with four new lines (15, 16, 17, 18), totaling more than 200 kilometers of tracks, which must come into operation. service between the end of 2025 and 2030.
After another agreement, at the end of September, between the State and Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) to limit the increase in subscriptions until 2031, this new protocol is a “complementary political ambition” in front of “the hassle in transport”said Mr. Beaune again.
“The absolute priority is the modernization of the existing network”with a budget of 1.8 billion euros dedicated to “the modernization of the RER and Transiliens”estimates Valérie Pécresse.
The future agreement must also be used to carry out the extension of the RER E to the west of Paris, as well as six new tram projects, around fifteen new bus projects “high level of service” and to adapt thirteen stations to the arrival of future lines, declared Mme Pécresse.
The protocol also concerns “major, highly anticipated road projects”with notably “100 million euros for the creation of lanes reserved for buses and carpooling on motorways”specifies the region.
Major issue of the Olympic Games
This memorandum of understanding arises in a context of political tensions around the quality of service of Ile-de-France transport, a major issue for the 2024 Summer Olympics (July 26-August 11).
At the beginning of December, IDFM deplored “a further deterioration in the transport service which is worrying”and its president, Valérie Pécresse, called the operator RATP to ” go back up the slope “. The same week, a pipe break at Châtelet-Les Halles station led to an interruption of traffic on the RER A, B and D lines in the heart of Paris.
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“We have an outdated network. There are at least eight out of ten lines that are no longer able to provide quality public service. We are paying for forty years of underinvestment in transport before those decided by Valérie Pécresse”said, at the same time, the CEO of RATP, former Prime Minister Jean Castex.
Comments taken up by Valérie Pécresse’s camp to highlight the responsibilities of the left, which governed the region from 1998 to 2015. And the president recalled the projects completed or in the process of being completed since the start of her mandate , including the extension of four metro lines (4, 11, 12, 14) and the opening or extension of six tram lines…