Tribune. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is clear: the coming decade will be crucial in reversing the trend of climate change and preventing the rise in temperatures from reaching levels with irremediable consequences.
While the road mode accounts for three quarters of greenhouse gas emissions linked to transport and that these represent 23% of total emissions on our planet, the modal shift from road to rail is more urgent than ever. absolute.
Incapacity
One might be tempted to believe that the necessary measures would have been taken to save the backbone of our network, preserve daily rail transport and lay the foundations for restarting freight.
We must go further. Certainly, courageous reforms have been carried out since 2017 with the opening up to competition and the resumption of the colossal debt of SNCF Réseau. But we are only in the middle of the ford.
In the Grand-Est region, the freight capillary network, the one that supplies businesses in our territory, has been reduced by 33%, from 629 kilometers in 2015 to 463 kilometers in 2020. “Passenger lines”, such as Nancy-Vittel, were also closed. We will reopen this one like others. However, today, the threats are numerous: thus we do not know which emergency works could be financed in 2023 to avoid slowdowns of trains or an interruption of the operation on several existing small lines. The service to the European capital Strasbourg itself is threatened.
We must get out of this powerlessness in the face of the long term. Together, the State, the regions and SNCF, we must find lasting answers to the question of financing rail infrastructure. Otherwise, we will have abandoned, without helping them, the inhabitants of small and medium-sized towns, peri-urban areas and rural areas.
We must act in three stages.
Lower railway tolls
– First, unblock transport offers now, by creating a real shock of supply with the increase in traffic to offer on all lines a continuous schedule, 365 days a year. The Grand-Est region is ready for this. .
But for that, it needs the help of the State and SNCF Réseau, which absolutely must review their deadly strategy of rail tolls. While in all our neighbors, in Switzerland, in Germany, in the Netherlands, the relaunch of the offer has been successfully achieved through low toll pricing, France has chosen the opposite route.
You have 46.23% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.