2023-10-05 17:14:43
They don’t see the end of the tunnel. TGV “suspended” since the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, elected officials from Burgundy-Franche-Comté are demanding, in a column published on Wednesday, the reestablishment of the Mulhouse-Lille TGV via Besançon and Dijon in particular.
“”We are not canceling, we are suspending, during the health crisis,” the SNCF spokesperson promised in 2020 (…) Three years later, this service has still not been restored. However, the SNCF announces a record summer with 24 million trips and +10% tickets sold on main lines,” write the mayors of Dijon, François Rebsamen (PS) and of Besançon, Anne Vignot (EELV), as well as the presidents of Côte d’Or, François Sauvadet (UDI) and of Doubs, Christine Bouquin (DVD).
An “unprofitable” line?
Burgundy-Franche-Comté, which has 2.8 million inhabitants, is “the fourth exporting region of France” and “needs to be connected to the major economic centers of the west of France and the north of the ‘Europe’, according to elected officials, who emphasize that the Mulhouse-Lille TGV service, which stops at Roissy, thus connects the region to an international airport.
“This suspension is starting to last: it is profoundly harmful to the European and international, economic, academic, social and cultural attractiveness of our territories”, underline the elected officials, refuting that the line is “not profitable”, as asserted the SNCF. “Nothing proves it (…) Certainly, the SNCF has financial imperatives. But is this argument the only one to take into account? Does the SNCF soon intend to “suspend” other lines that are popular with travelers, but considered to be loss-making even though the trains are full? Do strategic issues linked to ecology, attractiveness, tourism, regional planning and the needs of the population have so little weight? “.
In addition to the suspended line with Mulhouse, Dijon and Besançon are connected by TGV to Paris, but this train does not stop at Roissy.
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