After the Grand Paris Express for the inner suburbs of Paris, express coaches for the outer suburbs. This is the bet of Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region. Thursday, she decided to follow most of the recommendations of François Durovray, president of the Essonne department, who gave her a report on this subject. “We are going to give priority to express coaches which will allow residents of the outer suburbs to go to the center of the metropolis with a guaranteed, fast transport time and a lot of frequencies”, she says.
A necessary offer for those citizens who are far from an RER station, a train and even the Grand Paris Express, the future automatic metro. “Many of those who live on the outskirts have no other solution than to take their car to go to work, underlines François Durovray. With low emission zones (ZFE), they will have more and more difficulty using their old vehicle. We must therefore offer them alternatives.”
Wi-Fi, USB socket, light, seats… these coaches will be equipped to allow users to work or relax there. And, if motorists abandon their vehicle to take this new mode of public transport, the advantages will be multiple: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for the community, significant savings on their transport budget in this period of high inflation for passengers… Without forgetting that this new offer may help to calm the anger of these citizens who feel like they are under house arrest because of their distance from the heart of the metropolis. “These are anti-“yellow vests” lines”, image Valérie Pécresse.
The president of the Île-de-France region wants to launch the first lines as early as 2024. François Durovray must work by September to select the easiest routes to implement in the short term. Lines like Brie-Comte-Robert/Noisy-Champ would “beat down” passengers on RER or Grand Paris Express stations. Others, such as Meaux/Roissy or Élancourt/Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, would allow the inhabitants of the outer suburbs to get to large employment pools more quickly.
By 2030, the idea would be to have 40 such lines. Half would be ex nihilo creations. The other half would be to boost existing lines. To guarantee a journey time even in the event of a traffic jam, Valérie Pécresse says she is in favor of lanes reserved for these coaches on the part of the journey where there are the most slowdowns. For example on the A6 or the A10. This would represent 100 km to 120 km on a network that would make nearly 1,500. “We could make these reserved lanes on the hard shoulder, says Valérie Pécresse. In Marseille and Grenoble, which used this solution, it did not create a security problem.”
This approach has two big advantages: it does not create discontent among motorists since their lanes are not touched, and it costs less and takes less time than creating a new lane from scratch.
There remains the thorny issue of funding. Between the essential construction of 20 to 30 bus stations (500 million euros) and reserved lanes (500 million), investments amount to 1 billion by 2030. Île-de-France will necessarily pay its share , but Valérie Pécresse would like the public authorities to also make their ringing and stumbling contribution. “We will have a dialogue with the State to find out how much it will put in, she says. The State-Region Transport Plan Contract (CPER) is the right vehicle for this type of project.” The discussions are likely to be heated: the Ile-de-France executive, which aspired to have a transport CPER of 10 billion, asked the State to provide 4 billion in this context. The prefect still does not have a mandate to negotiate while the last CPER ended at the end of 2022. Under the terms of the first discussions, the State would be ready to put in only 1.8 billion. And a third of this envelope would be devoted to projects aimed at improving the rail service to Normandy from Saint-Lazare station.
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To this must be added an annual operating budget of 100 million. Enough to pay the operators selected to operate these lines and maintain the rolling stock. This sum will be disbursed by Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) also chaired by Valérie Pécresse. Finally, it will be necessary to buy a fleet of 500 to 600 clean buses. “It is to be compared with the 40 billion to create the Grand Paris Express”, nuance François Durovray.
