On January 1, Sytral became a local public establishment, AOTML (Organizing Authority for Mobilities and Lyonnais Territories). According to a press release, this new body “now carries new missions of coordination, multimodal information and planning of all mobility” in the Rhône.
The first board of directors of the new instance decision-making meeting was held on Monday, January 10. It was chaired by Bruno Bernard, also president of the metropolis, and composed of 38 members. However, the new composition includes 24 elected representatives of the metropolis, including 16 EELV, against 4 elected from the opposition only. The metropolis will therefore have 71 votes out of 98 in total. The West of Lyon, whose town halls are mostly under the opposition, could fear not having control over the future of their public transport, which could be improved in this area.
A unique network that would cover beyond the metropolis
The priority of Jean-Charles Kohlhaas, vice-president of Sytral, is to constitute “a single network, as large as possible – initially in the Rhône department – but allowing other territories to join this network. zone, ”he assures us. “This new network, which will be set up in the next two years, will have” a single pricing system, ticketing, so that the service to the user is as fluid as possible “.
A visible improvement is expected for September 2023, which involves a merger of the three existing networks: “the TCL network in the metropolis, the Libellule network in Villefranche, and the peri-urban network of buses in the Rhône”, continues Jean-Charles Kohlhaas, ” to prioritize the lines and make them regular, rhythmic, efficient ”. A single ticket will allow you to go from one line to another, from a coach to a metro … If the AOTML assures that it does not want to increase the prices, it is considering zonal pricing, as in the past in Ile-de -France.
No improvement in sight in Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or
It remains to be seen how the AOTML intends to better serve nearby but poorly served municipalities, such as in the Lyonnais mountains, where residents have few alternatives to the car. Cyrille Bouvat, transport delegate at the town hall of Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or, is skeptical: “For us, this change in status of Sytral is quite invisible. We do not see how this can improve our service, since long before that, we saw that the axes of the strong lines programmed by the Sytral, just like the Voies Lyonnaises, leave towards the Saône valley, Champagne, Ecully … while Saint-Cyr is a bit in the middle of it all and does not have a strong public transport structuring project. “
Given that the geography of the Lyonnais mountains prevents the construction of a tramway, the town hall of Saint-Cyr would have liked at best “an extension of line D, which would have avoided the flow of vehicles. But this hypothesis seems to have been rejected by the president of Sytral ”.
Strengthen the existing service before alternative solutions
The problem of a municipality like Saint-Cyr arises all the more since the last mandate saw a certain number of land transactions. “Promoters have come,” confirms Cyrille Bouvat, “the coming years will save us a thousand additional inhabitants. The current traffic difficulties are therefore likely to worsen, especially as we are not making progress, or little, on alternative solutions such as a secure bicycle line or car-sharing lines. “
Jean-Charles Kohlhaas specifies that several avenues are being studied at AOTML, while acknowledging that “certain nearby municipalities, which are already in the TCL network, have a perfectible offer. Saint-Fons, for example, had no strong public transport line. Our objective is to strengthen the service where it exists, and above all to go to areas where the service is poor, whether in the heart of the metropolis or in those covered by the Cars du Rhône. The goal is to have as few white areas as possible, if at all. And there is already a strong will to cooperate on the part of all the territories. If the opposition is almost absent from the board of directors of the AOTML, direct cooperation with its elected officials is perhaps the surest way to have a weight on future mobilities.