Will the RER (regional express network) be exported out of Paris? In a video posted on his YouTube channel on Sunday, Emmanuel Macron promises to create a network of urban trains “in ten major French cities” as well as Paris.
“To fulfill our ecological ambition, I want us to have a great national ambition: in ten large French cities, develop an RER network,” he announced, without giving further indications about the cities in question, the financing of this project, or whether this plan it will go through the operation of the existing network or new infrastructures.
“He is basically saying that the RER is not alone in Paris,” Emmanuel Macron added.
These new transport networks will decongest these cities “where there is thrombosis”, “too much traffic” and “where traveling is complicated”, he explains starting at minute 8 with 30 minutes of his video. “It’s a big goal for the ecology, the economy, the quality of life,” she said.
The idea of an RER in the provinces is not new. In 2020, the former Minister of Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, announced that 30 million credits would be released from the recovery plan to finance the preparatory work for the deployment of future RER-type networks. The SNCF Réseau had even given him a report.
Before him, the one who is now Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, had given instructions in particular to the public manager of the French railways in May 2019 to work on the issue.
In Paris, the RER was born on December 8, 1877, at the behest of Charles de Gaulle. Fifteen years earlier, the general, flying over the Paris region with his prefect, would have had this sentence: “Delouvrier, put me in order in this brothel.”
Today, the RER A is the most used line in Europe, “with regular attendance peaks of more than 1.3 million passengers per day,” according to Île-de-France Mobilités.
But many European cities, capitals excluded, are already better endowed than France. Example of Germany, where the inhabitants of Frankfurt and its agglomeration can count on the “S-Bahn” since 1978.
Source: BFM TV
