the bus derails the tram in Annecy
It was one of the hot topics of the last municipal campaign in Annecy (Haute-Savoie), that of the mobility in the agglomeration and the tram. A tram that could well fall into oblivion on November 18 during the community council of Greater Annecy.
Because at the end of a private council, not deliberative, at the end of last week, three quarters (44) from elected present (68 out of a total of 95), after having chosen two of the six options proposed in March by the cabinet SYSTRA pour the future public transport scheme on a dedicated site, three quarters of the elected representatives present preferred the one where there is no tram line but where the 5 future routes will be served by BRT, buses with a high level of service.
The tram is not worth the effort
Among the community advisers who are supporters of this whole BRT, the president of the agglomeration Frederique Lardet.
Insofar as we have chosen that this future public transport network will be built as a fully-fledged own site, that is to say never shared with other motorized vehicles, and therefore not slowed down, that moreover BRTs now have an equivalent technical level. to that of a tram and that it costs much less, in our case _485 million euros for 5 all-bus branches, compared to 603 million euros with 4 BRT lines and one tram_, the tram is therefore no longer worth the candle.
90% of year-olds want the tram
This file is a new subject of friction and discord within the municipal majority of Annecy between the president of Grand Annecy Frédérique Lardet and the mayor of Annecy Francois Astorg fierce defender of the tram in the city center who in his speech at the platform of the private council last Thursday declared:
I will not accept a solution that would suit the other municipalities of the agglomeration and not the city-center and its 130,000 inhabitants. During the last municipal elections, 90% of the year-olds voted for the two lists, from Jean-Luc Rigaut and mine, which proposed the tram in their project for Annecy. this vote we commit.
François Astorg also supports that “The tram is the most suitable mode of reducing car traffic. It regrets” a purely accounting logic and wishes a debate which converge the city center and all the municipalities towards a common interest leaving aside the political controversies “.
The fact remains that even before the vote of November 18, it appears all the same that the elected representatives of the city center, which has half of the population of the agglomeration, no longer weigh enough, or pay the price for their political calculations.