This “railway New Deal” would aim in particular to “create a transport ‘supply shock'” and to “upgrade the existing network and modernize it in rural areas as well as in cities”, they write.
And “New Deal ferroviaire“. In a column published by The world Saturday, 15 regional presidents, including Valérie Pécresse (Ile-de-France), Laurent Wauquiez (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) or Xavier Bertrand (Hauts-de-France), call for a vast investment plan in the rail , “modernization and railway equipment». «Europe, State, SNCF and communities would commit to invest, over a period of ten years, between 2023 and 2033, 10 billion euros per year on average“Write these elected officials, or 100 billion euros over ten years.
A pharaonic amount, but not chosen at random. As these regional presidents themselves point out, the CEO of SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou pleaded last July for an investment in rail transport of 100 billion euros over fifteen years, “for its immediate upgrade and to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050».
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In their forum, these regional elected officials – whose public rail transport is under their jurisdiction – list everything this money could be used for. “Our ambition is clear: to create a “shock of supply” in transport, to upgrade the existing network and modernize it in rural areas as well as in cities, to build new metropolitan RERs, to strengthen industrial and tourist rail motorways towards Europe“, they explain. On the upgrade part, they call in particular for “accelerate the essential regeneration of the part of the RER network in the Ile-de-France region which has become extremely dilapidated due to lack of maintenance».
Innovation and relocation
For these fifteen regional elected officials, “innovation must be at the heart of this project: to modernize traffic regulation, to have a ticketing system that promotes intermodality, to decarbonize our modes of traction with the hydrogen train…They also believe it is crucial to relocate the railway industry. That “goes through the relaunch of rail freight motorways, the end of procrastination around the Lyon-Turin route or the modernization of the Perpignan-Rungis (Val-de-Marne) primeur line“, they judge, as well as by”the construction of new TGV lines to support the economy and the revitalization of fine lines serving rural areas and the mountains».
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To finance this plan, the regional presidents, among whom are also Carole Delga (Occitanie), Loïg Chesnais-Girard (Brittany), Hervé Morin (Normandy) or Jean Rottner (Grand Est), appeal in particular to Europe. But also to the State, which “must assume its responsibilities as owner of the infrastructure», and to the SNCF, «who must be the operational and technical pivot». «The regions will be at its side to improve the service and the service offer“, they say. “In the spirit of the major unifying initiatives that have modernized France, this is our plan to save the train“, they conclude their forum.