Jean-Pierre Farandou, the president of SNCF, has proposed a program aimed at doubling the share of rail, which he estimates at around 100 billion euros over fifteen years. And the investment effort in the railway should reach these 100 billion euros in the coming years, estimated Tuesday the Minister Delegate for Transport Clément Beaune, for whom “the priority of priorities” goes to the network and daily trains.
“The message from Jean-Pierre Farandou, the president of the SNCF, which I share (…), is to reinvest a lot in the rail sector and in particular in the network”, declared Clément Beaune on France Inter. “We do it,” he added, saying he was wary “of a display that can be a bit marketing.” “I really want that if we free up budgetary means – and we will free up some –, we put them as a priority on these transport for work, everyday life most often, and on the network”, which “is aging”, hammered the minister Monday.
“Measures at the start of the school year” to encourage carpooling
“When we (make) the addition in the coming decade in daily trains, in Greater Paris trains, in high-speed lines, in the renovation of small lines, in the network, we will be frankly, very probably, at this level of investment [100 milliards d’euros] “, assured the minister. For peri-urban areas, Clément Beaune is betting on the development of “metropolitan RERs” such as in Strasbourg, Marseille and Lyon.
The Minister also intends to announce “measures at the start of the school year” to encourage carpooling. As for the plane, called to “go green”, it “will remain an important mode of transport, for long distances in particular”, according to him.
“We have to come back to the true ecological and social price of this mode of transport”, noted Clément Beaune, pointing out “the excesses that we have experienced in recent years from low-cost companies, often foreign by the way”, which have not integrated the ecological cost or have been able to engage in social dumping.