Aurélien Fleurot, edited by Gauthier Delomez
The new RER could flourish elsewhere than in the Paris region. This is the meaning of this Sunday’s announcement by Emmanuel Macron, who wants to promote the ecological transition. If the list of affected cities is not yet known, some already have metro network projects underway, such as Strasbourg, Lille or Toulouse.
Will the RER soon not be just Paris anymore? This Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron announced his plans to develop such daily rail transport in ten French cities to promote the ecological transition and meet France’s ambitions in the matter. These are large cities interested, such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille, where a project is already being studied, or Strasbourg.
In the Alsatian capital, the deployment of a RER is even quite concrete since a European metropolitan express network will be launched on December 11th.
Marseille, Lyon and Rennes potentially affected
The basis of this announcement is both to put many more trains into circulation every 30 minutes initially on certain destinations, but also to integrate express carriages that will eventually be able to circulate on dedicated tracks.
The idea is therefore to offer a credible alternative to the car for reaching urban centres. Among the cities concerned, Marseille, Lyon and Rennes are expected to be part of this list, which has not yet been unveiled by the government.
13 billion euros for 13 RERs, according to SNCF
However, such projects take time, even “a decade” according to Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport. If this idea of metropolitan express networks surprised this Sunday evening, it is not entirely new. It is part of the 2019 mobility orientation law. The managing director of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, spoke about it a few weeks ago, also evoking an idea order for the financing of 13 billion euros for 13 metropolitan RER.
It will obviously require state support at a time when public transport prices are soaring.
