The exchanges were cordial but there were many concerns this Thursday evening in the room of the cultural center which welcomed elected officials from Normandy and Ile-de-France to present the next steps and recall the orientations of the new Paris-Normandy line project (LNPN). Initiated in 2009, it aims to “provide the Seine valley with an efficient rail link on the Paris – Mantes – Rouen – Le Havre axis and to complete it with a section towards Caen and Cherbourg. » The promise: to desaturate the network and gain speed by allowing trains to travel at 220 km/h compared to 100 to 150 today on Nomad trains.
To date, the future rail link has been divided into three stages, detailed by Didier Roblès, project director at SNCF Réseau: priority 1, with expected entry into service by 2035, for the Paris/Mantes-la-Jolie section. and Rouen/Barentin, with the construction of a new station in Rouen Saint-Sever, for travelers to and from Le Havre; priority 2 with entry into service after 2040 for the sections between Mantes-la-Jolie and Évreux and between Barentin and Yvetot; and a priority 3, whose commissioning horizon is planned after 2050, with the creation of a new station in Évreux and the creation of a Y link between Rouen, Évreux and Bernay.
Desaturate the network
“Priority was given to sections which allow the network to be desaturated”, specifies the project director, by focusing both on reduced travel times for trains that can run faster, and also by making it possible “to suffer less from the technical hazards which, today, slow down the entire network.
“Currently, we have a line which has quite a few security flaws, which is regularly blocked at the slightest gust of wind or accident,” recalls the prefect of Eure, Simon Babre. “We have trains that are stuck in bottlenecks that we don’t know how to evacuate. The solution is to evacuate travelers by land means. »
This project, which provides for the creation of new sections and the modification of existing tracks to allow trains to approach certain curves at higher speeds, should allow a greater volume of trains, passengers and freight, but above all save 5 minutes for journeys between Paris Saint-Lazare and Mantes-la-Jolie, 16 minutes between Paris and Évreux, 20 minutes between Paris and Rouen, 25 minutes between Paris and Caen and 37 minutes between Paris and Le Havre, for a journey estimated at 1h33 when it was 2h11 in 2017.
“It’s expensive per minute”
However, and this is one of the main protests of the elected officials present this Thursday, for these precious minutes saved, the bill is heavy. In 2016, the project valued the work on the priority 1 section at 4.3 billion euros. For section 2, the work presented is currently estimated at more than 1.3 billion euros. “It’s expensive per minute,” we slip into the room.
Elected officials from Normandy and the Ile-de-France region gathered in Pacy-sur-Eure in the presence of the prefect of Eure and SNCF Réseau expressed their concerns about the directions of the LNPN route. LP/Julie Guesdon
“Currently, life is hard for everyone,” says Jocelyne Ridard, mayor of Caillouet-Orgeville in Eure, one of the municipalities on the LNPN route. “You are talking about billions like us, we are talking about a 10 euro note which is in our pocket. » The elected official is also alarmed by the land needed for these new infrastructures: “For two or three minutes, we will lose 160 ha of land. If our young people build, will we come and knock down their houses afterwards? »
With a route defined over a strip approximately 3 km wide, the route of priority 1 zones is still “too loose”, explains SNCF Réseau, which will resume public consultations and studies this winter 2023-2024 in order to tighten the project. But in these areas, particularly where land costs could rise, “land control systems” could be applied. Understand a freeze on real estate projects in areas larger than the final route.
“Investors will flee our territories”
Here again, it squeaks. “Investors will flee our territories so as not to take the risk of having a line that will freeze their projects,” warns Cécile Zammit-Popescu, mayor of Meulan-en-Yvelines and president of the Grand Paris Seine et Oise Urban Community. The elected official deplores this upcoming freezing of projects to “preserve the future”: “The prefects of the departments are preparing to sign the consideration orders which will freeze all our territories. We have beams passing through the middle of villages, blocking school projects, a clinic, etc. These projects concern a third of the Yvelines department, but half of the RSA beneficiaries. However, we need attractiveness to get out of this situation. »
“If the route is chosen between Merey and Gadencourt, almost a third of the town will be razed,” adds Romain Bourgine, first deputy of the town of Merey. “The impression we have as a municipality located on the route is that a project is being imposed on us which is deemed to be of public utility and that we have no recourse. » “We are planning several alternative solutions on the route,” answers Didier Roblès. The LNPN project director wants to be reassuring: “a public inquiry is planned for 2026, so you have recourse”.
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