The costing is far-reaching and its purpose clearly identified, but its contours and financing have yet to be defined. The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, was to announce, Friday, February 24, a plan of 100 billion euros by 2040 concentrated mainly on local rail transport. An initiative intended to give substance to the government’s desire to promote ecological planning. A way, too, to promote, in the same approach, environmental protection and development of public transport, particularly in large cities.
Mme Borne, who was Minister of Transport, then Minister of Ecological Transition after heading the RATP, took advantage of the presentation of the conclusions of a report by the Infrastructure Orientation Council (COI) to lift the veil on a ” new railway deal “, according to the entourage of the Prime Minister. Chaired by MP David Valence (related to Renaissance), this advisory body which brings together experts and elected officials from both the majority and the opposition has developed several hypotheses around a sharp increase in investment, more particularly for the benefit of so-called daily transport.
The scenario adopted recommends increasing the planned budgets by half, inherited in particular from the mobility orientation law (LOM), adopted in 2019, in a political and economic context very different from that which prevails today.
Rapid and massive flows
Overall, the expenditure envisaged by the COI would reach 84.3 billion euros over the period 2023-2027. This would include including investments deemed “the most relevant to facilitate modal shift” from the road to public transport and to promote decarbonization. Local authorities and operators will also be contacted.
The CEO of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, had evoked in recent months the idea of an envelope of 100 billion euros which he envisaged over fifteen years in order to double the contribution of the train, ecologically more virtuous, to the urban mobility.
The most advanced programming concerns the creation of metropolitan RER networks, a proposal highlighted at the end of November by Emmanuel Macron who, taking the government by surprise, had made himself the promoter. These networks should make it possible to organize rapid and massive transport flows, likely to strengthen links with outlying suburbs in large conurbations such as Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Lille or Rennes.
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