To bury or not to bury?

by Marco Chown Oved

Article published on the 2009-04-01 Latest update 2009-05-08 09:04 TU

(© Le Monde)

A polemic surfaced early around junior minister Christian Blanc's proposed Parisian Train bypass, which was announced ahead of any of the ten architects' plans. Blanc put forward the idea of creating a 140km underground automated railway which would loop around Paris, connecting the suburbs and the two major airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly. The only problem is that virtually all the experts hate it, including the world-famous French architect Jean Nouvel.

Suburbanites have long complained that the public transport system in Paris, based on the hub-and-spoke system, forces everyone to pass through downtown Paris on their way to anywhere else.

Traveling between two adjacent suburbs, for example, can require a 20-minute ride into the centre of Paris, only to switch trains and take another 20-minute ride back out to your destination.

Blanc's solution to this problem is an interesting mix of Sarkozyism, foresight and ecology. Taking a cue from the president, Blanc is pinning his project on the idea of automated trains that would provide round-the-clock service, and more importantly, never go on strike.

Paris's transport system is routinely crippled by strikes, despite President Sarkozy's best efforts to legislate a minimum guaranteed service during labour disputes.

The foresight comes via the proposed route, which passes through the high traffic airport zones and the biggest suburbs, but also includes less-populated zones, anticipating demand instead of waiting for the system to become clogged and in need of relief.

It is based around identifying priority regions, called clusters, and linking them together.

The chosen clusters include university campuses, where laboratory research is carried out and industrial factories, which produce equipment for domestic and international consumption.

The clusters also include residential concentrations, which need to be accessible day and night, and transport hubs such as airports and train stations that open up the transport network to the rest of the country and beyond.

Ecologically speaking, he proposes burying the railway, making it something of a giant subway with stations every two to three kilometers. There is even a suggestion that parks could be built over the top.

But, when Blanc presented the plan to the teams of architects, he was received with hostility.

“You don't bury people in order to have them travel,” said Jean Nouvel, upon seeing the plans.

“It's heresy to build metros in tunnels when you can easily have people move around in the open air,” said his partner, urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart.

“In order to feel like you're a part of the metropolis, you have to be able to discover it when you're moving through it,” said the third member of Nouvel's team, Jean-Marie Duthilleul.