Lhe growing protest over road projects in France expresses a change in outlook on mobility and speed. The widely publicized case of the A69 motorway linking Toulouse to Castres (Tarn) is just one example among around fifty local struggles now brought together under the banner of the network of collectives: La Rout des routes.
On the transport policy side, these changes in perspective remain largely ignored. Socio-economic evaluations of projects continue to place considerable monetary value on the utility of speed, often at the expense of their environmental effects.
In the last report, from 2018, on the lowering of maximum authorized speeds to 110 kilometers per hour on motorways, lost time represents a cost of 1.145 billion euros for the community. Environmental gains – less fuel, pollution and CO2 – are only valued at 474 million euros. The balance therefore tilts clearly towards maintaining the limit of 130 km/h.
Conversely, in acceleration projects such as the western bypass of Rouen, it is the same logic. The benefits linked to time savings (1.35 billion euros) overwhelm all other considerations and “theoretically” validate the interest of the project.
The legitimacy of a transport infrastructure therefore rests almost entirely on the supposed time savings brought to populations. There is a real mythology there, a sleight of hand based on the magical transformation of speed.
Victims of their success
According to economic theories, the “value of time” present in the evaluations would reveal what individuals are willing to give up of their salary to save time. Conversely, in the case of lowering to 110 km/h, it shows how much they would have to be compensated for to accept losing time. These time-material resource arbitrations are considered as invariant data, linked to the psychology of individuals; these are tutelary values.
They fuel a now “classic” logic which consists of starting from so-called “needs” – saving time – and deducing the optimal means to satisfy them – rapid transport infrastructures.
But what are these so-called individual needs? Observations show that speed does not save time, but accessible space. There are no time savings per se. Ultimately, we will move further from our workplace, go shopping further, go further on vacation, thanks to speed. The daily travel time has remained stable over time; of the order of one hour per day, while the average speed has continued to increase.
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