Will the transport in the Île-de-France region be ready to welcome the 10 million spectators of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris? The authorities want to reassure us and try to do everything possible to achieve this, despite numerous delays and a tense social climate.
On the paper of the bid, it was a fact: trains, buses, trams and applications to guide travelers were planned and therefore should not pose any problems for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
However, the current difficulties of public transport in the Île-de-France region suggest the worst. Since the summer, the Paris public transport operator has been under severe stress: staff shortages, recruitment difficulties, worrisome absenteeism and sporadic strikes. Buses and subways are increasingly scarce, which has exasperated users and raised doubts ahead of the Olympic Games.
“We are going to do everything we can to make it to the Games,” promised Jean Castex, former Prime Minister and current Director General of the RATP, announcing thousands of new jobs.
Île-de-France Mobilités reassures
On Sunday March 12, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the authority responsible for organizing transport in the capital region, unveiled its plan to ensure the greatest possible flow of traffic between July 26 and July 8. September 2024, dates of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The challenge is considerable: the company will have to be able to transport as many passengers as on a peak day in the Île-de-France region, but in a few concentrated sites in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis, and all this in full summer.
The plan “is not insignificant because there is not a single site to attend, but 25 that work at the same time,” IDFM Director General Laurent Probst told a press conference.
The Games (July 26-August 11, 2024) are divided into 750 “sessions”, for which 7 million viewers are expected. This supposes an average of 50 daily sessions and “for each one there is a transport plan. It is as if we had 50 games a day for fifteen days”, explains Laurent Probst.
For the Paralympic Games (from August 28 to September 8), with some 3 million viewers, there will be an average of 18 daily sessions, but “with the particularity that the second week will also be the start of school.”
The Games will attract up to 500,000 spectators a day -with peaks expected on July 28 and August 2-, not counting open events such as cycling and the marathon, where hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected along the routes.
In Saint-Denis, around the Stade de France, peaks of 1,000 people per minute are expected “but for several hours it is unheard of to manage,” according to Laurent Probst.
Spread out to better manage
Although the number of trains will increase by 15%, the main challenge lies in the distribution of passengers among the existing lines. To this end, IDFM is also working on an application dedicated to transport during the Olympic Games and will have 5,000 agents at the stations to guide passengers.
“Our goal is that 100% of people come to the Stade de France by public transport”, compared to the usual average of 60%, declared Laurence Debrincat, Director of Studies and Olympic Games at the IDFM.
For this reason, Paris-2024 will recommend a preferential itinerary to spectators with a ticket to “encourage them to look for” other lines than those used during normal hours, since the RER and the metro arrive at the Stade de France.
“To get to a place, forget about how you usually get there and follow the path you are told,” explained Laurence Debrincat.
Red alert for the social climate
However, there is still one element that could derail the plans drawn up on paper: a potentially explosive social climate, since the Olympic Games are being organized six months before the bus network, currently operated as a monopoly by the RATP, will open up to competition
The unions of the Régie are very hostile and the regional left, in opposition, is agitated… To avoid a strike that would cause disorder, the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, went so far as to say that he was willing to extend the monopoly of the RATP.
On the political level, the president of the region, Valérie Pécresse, tries to take advantage of the urgency of completing her budget for 2024, arguing that additional services for the Olympic Games, in particular, should cost 200 million euros, threatening not to open the new lines if it doesn’t get anything.
The new lines figured strongly in the Paris 2024 candidacy published seven years ago.
For example, he promised a travel time of “22 minutes to the media village and 30 minutes to the Olympic village from (Roissy airport) via line 17” of the future Greater Paris metro. But it won’t be finished before 2030… The CDG Express, a fast train that will link Roissy to the center of Paris, and line 16 won’t be ready either.
Only one infrastructure will be ready just in time: line 14, which will run north to Saint-Denis Pleyel, near the Olympic village, and south to Orly airport. In June 2024.
“The solutions announced do not seem sufficient or feasible from an operational point of view,” says Iona Lefebvre of the Montaigne Institute, a public policy think tank in France.
The theme is closely followed. The scenes of chaos around the Stade de France during the Champions League final at the end of May are still fresh in everyone’s memory, and the French authorities have been criticized.
With AFP.
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