Michel Lussault is a geographer, expert in urban and town planning studies. Former President of the University of Tours and of the Higher Program Council, he is now Director of the Urban School of Lyon at the University of Lyon.
Is the metropolitan RER a new concept?
No. In the 1960s and 1970s, these networks were already part of the thinking of geographers and urban planners. In Tours, for example, the railway star that extends around the city appeared to be underused. All cities have networks that could be rehabilitated. Until the 1950s, the incipient suburbanization remained railway, and this can still be read on the maps. However, from the end of the war, blindness led us to invest exclusively in the road system. And that wasted our time. Car mobility seems simple and free, both for the user and for the developer. In reality, its costs are hidden.
Today, peri-urban mobility could be ensured by the “railway stars”, associated with a cycle feeder to the stations. I’m surprised that we underestimated this potential. It is true that this requires having the courage to “de-think” the automobile.
Germany has had S-Bahn (express train) for a long time. How do you explain this advance?
In the 1960s, Germany chose to maintain its rail networks while France dismantled them, like the very dense tram networks. I put forward a hypothesis related to the public administration of the territory. In France, the road network is controlled by the State and the country is centralized, which mechanically favors the automobile system. In Germany, it is the regions that decide, and they have investment powers that French local authorities do not have.
Will the metropolitan RER be enough to limit automobile dependence?
This would require several conditions. France has become considerably urbanized, and this urbanization has become scattered, fragmented, with a fairly low density. But the inhabitants remain very dependent on the central city, which leads to a decoupling between work, leisure and services. This spatial organization has an economic, environmental and social cost, as shown by the mini energy crisis we are currently experiencing. In addition, road networks tend to be increasingly congested.
To get out of the model centered on metropolises, it is necessary to think not only of RERs serving the centers from the periphery, but also of meshed networks, from suburb to suburb. It is necessary to assume the spread and the multipolarity, but by organizing the displacements around the railway.
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