“This is a massive, historic and unprecedented investment plan,” rejoice Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport, and Christelle Morançais, president of the Pays-de-la-Loire region. The State and the regional council of Pays-de-la-Loire signed this Thursday noon, in Nantes, an investment memorandum of understanding for a total amount of one billion euros, relating to the mobility component of the State-region plan contract (CPER) 2023-2027. Rail takes the lion’s share since half of the credits will be devoted to developing the train offer.
This will include launching the metropolitan RER project “as soon as possible” in the Nantes metropolitan area. This will then be “one of the very first metropolises to benefit” from this regular schedule desired by Emmanuel Macron and which should result in the guarantee of “a train departure every half hour” in each station of the Nantes railway star during rush hours. Across Pays-de-la-Loire, TER traffic could increase by 67% by 2030.
Cycling and roads are not forgotten
Still concerning trains, it was also announced the “improvement” of the Nantes-Angers-Le Mans-Paris axis, work on the Massy-Valenton line currently generating delays, the reopening of the Cholet-Les Herbiers link with a station at Puy-du-Fou, or the creation of a railway stop at Bouguenais to serve Nantes-Atlantique airport.
Furthermore, the agreement signed this Thursday between the Pays-de-la-Loire region and the State plans to allocate 15% of credits to the development of cycling, in particular the creation of “veloroutes”, in the five departments of the region. It is also planned to make “strategic road axes” more fluid, in particular the Nantes ring road at the Bellevue bridge.
“This is the culmination of a long period of work and we can be proud of the result. I would not have signed this agreement if it did not meet the expectations,” says Christelle Morançais (various right). “We need a real partnership between the State and the regions to show that we are capable of changing people’s lives. And this contract will be really concrete, really change,” promises Minister Clément Beaune. This contract comes in a particular context since the government was locally widely criticized for never having compensated, contrary to its promises, for the abandonment in 2018 of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project.
Clément Beaune will make known this Thursday afternoon the State’s intentions concerning the redevelopment of Nantes-Atlantique airport and the protection of the urban area against noise pollution. On October 2, the minister announced that work to modernize this airport had been postponed for at least two years.