Will metro line 3 be on time and financially in the nails?
On December 15, the groundbreaking ceremony for the third metro line in Toulouse (line C) will be symbolically given during an official ceremony. It will mark the start of six years of heavy work to dig this 27 km infrastructure between Labège and Colomierswhich is scheduled to come into service in 2028.
But in the metropolitan opposition, and in particular in the Alternative group for a citizen metropolis (AMC), we have the greatest doubts about this date. Its members “skinned” a working document, sent to mayors in November, and named “Financial Sustainability Study No. 4” (ESB 4 in the jargon). In particular, they noted that the “flat-rate remuneration of Tisséo Voyageurs”, the management company which operates the network, only makes a link in the curves in 2030. And they deduce from this that it is in that year that the line will be open to the public.
An official date kept
An “interpretation” that is quick to deny Sasha Briand (LR), the vice-president of the metropolis in charge of finance. “There is no calendar change, it will open in 2028, as planned. It would be stupid of us to lie about the date when there are municipal elections in 2026, he said. But since the group in question does not have the courage to say that it is against the third line, it creates confusion over a very thick financial document. »
Marc Péré, the mayor of the Union, is not exactly against the project, “but we are doing two metro lines at the same time, it is too long and too expensive”, he underlines. The project revealed at 2.67 billion in 2017 is now valued at three billion. This is far too much for AMC which, still on the basis of ESB 4, predicts a “colossal cash requirement” by 2040 “which could put the financial balance of Tisséo and the Metropolis in danger” . ” Jean-Luc Moudenc [le maire de Toulouse] locks us into a strategy that could be described as almost monomaniacal with this 3rd metro line when we need a decentralized mobility policy,” says Agathe Roby. “Other public transport solutions exist for all the inhabitants of the metropolis”, added Odile Maurin, more excited by the idea of a “metropolitan RER”.
“An independent financial audit”
The members of AMC also concluded from the document that the investment on surface transport would pay “200 million euros” by 2030 and the envelope for the maintenance of the network of “70 million euros”. .
Rather than a beautiful ceremony, they would prefer “an independent financial audit before starting the construction site”, and would prepare to “sound the alarm” with the prefect and the Regional Chamber of Accounts.
On the 200 million euros less for buses on its own site, Sacha Briand explains that it is about road works (type bus lanes) formerly budgeted at Tisséo but which are now in the accounts of the metropolis . For the rest, the finance specialist refers to ESB 5, which will be drawn up “early January”. “And much clearer because we will have consolidated data after renegotiating the agreement with Tisséo Voyageurs and awarding the first lots for the main work of the metro”. No delay, no financial slippage therefore, according to him. But he concedes “a big concern” on the energy side. For the year 2023 alone, the additional cost turns out to be 20 million euros for the management, “i.e. almost 10% of the budget”.