New circular route around city core would improve suburb-to-suburb commuting

On March 17, Christian Blanc, France’s minister of Development in the Capital Regionannounced that the state would invest 15-20 billion Euros over the next 10 years for the construction of the world’s longest automated rapid transit line, at 130 km and with 60 stations. The minister made the announcement of the state’s commitment at a day-long presentation of proposals by architects for “Le Grand Paris,” an attempt to unite the city and the surrounding suburbs through governmental reforms and infrastructure improvements. The Paris’ city core is currently cut off from its suburbs by a ring road.

There’s been a lot of talk in recent months about the potential for a new transit line that would circle the city without entering it because of the growing number of suburb-to-suburb commutes, the continued development of the dynamic business center at La Défense on the west side of the city, the creation of science and technology cores in the south at Saclay and in the north at Le Bourget, and the continued need for improving the social equity between the poor northeastern sections of the suburbs and the wealthy western areas. RATP, the city’s mass transit authority, has proposed a project called Métrophérique, and the region of Ile-de-France has proposed the Arc Express; both projects would ring relatively closely to the city’s outer limits and hit the densest areas of the suburbs.

Click here to read the entire article and to check out the proposed route maps.