Not sure, but in Toulouse, on July 4, the project…

Not sure, but in Toulouse, on July 4, the high-speed line project was accelerated by the State and the local authorities concerned by its financing, alongside SNCF Réseaux and SNCF Gares et Connexions. From now on, the project has a pilot: the GPSO company, or SGPS0, its supervisory board, and its steering committee, are definitively installed.

During the start-up of the supervisory board and the meeting of the steering committee, all the stakeholders responded in their own way to its opponents. For the SGPSO, the 327 kilometers of new line, the developments south of Bordeaux and north of Toulouse? will not be held back by his eviction from the last MIE. “On the contrary, the project is entering a decisive phase” explained the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, who was unanimously appointed president of the supervisory board.

A calendar… advanced?

“There is no reason for Europe not to finance the GPSO, it already does so via 39.2 million euros devoted to developments north of Toulouse and south of Bordeaux”, argued the prefect of Occitanie. and project coordinator, Étienne Guyot. “The non-registration of the 17,309 million euros for technical studies in this MIE does not call anything into question. Our file has also been very well rated, 19.5/25, but Europe has just preferred to support projects in the construction phase”, specified the latter.

And precisely, the objective of the SGPSO and its next board, currently being recruited, will be to accelerate the launch of the work. “The State and the local authorities concerned have moved forward in a united manner in this file, the work will begin in 2024, the objective is to enter service in 2032… At the latest, because I am convinced that we can save time on the preliminary studies and even the construction site! assures Carole Delga.

Alain Rousset: “There is no alternative! »

Saving time is also the objective of the president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and vice-president of the supervisory board Alain Rousset, who already mentions the construction site in strategy: “The longer we delay, the more the price of materials rises. If a provision for contingencies has been provided for in the envelope necessary for the realization of the site, nothing prevents us from anticipating, from building up stocks of materials without waiting for new price increases, “he launched visibly to SNCF. Networks, project owner. The president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine did not hide his annoyance vis-à-vis the opponents of the project. “The Tours-Bordeaux LGV is both a popular and commercial success which has led to a 10% increase in TER traffic. The LGV is not only a service to Paris, it is also Bordeaux-Poitiers in 1 hour 20 minutes. It is the ratio of the car to the train and it could not be more ecological. Some lie to our fellow citizens by minimizing the success of the LGV Tours-Bordeaux to stigmatize this GPSO for which we must also remember that there is no alternative to the creation of new lines. You can’t run high-speed trains on a track that has 140 level crossings! »

The president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine did not hide his annoyance vis-à-vis the opponents of the project

Moving faster than the unfounded rumors of a lack of European funding that were circulating at the end of June, the SGPSO Supervisory Board voted its first budget on July 4: 43.6 million euros to start the pre-operational phases. It was also decided to vote next September on a financing agreement providing for the payment by the 25 local authorities of their share of the project from 2023.

In short, everything is set in motion to ensure that the commissioning of the GPSO, the Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax lines can take place in 2032 or even mid-August 2031 hopes for a president of SGPSO who, in two years, will exchange her position with an elected official – Alain Rousset – who is not known to be less in a hurry when it comes to structuring projects.