At the request of an association for the defense of pedestrians and cyclists, justice has just canceled, definitively, the Mobility Projects 2020-2025-2030 of Toulouse.
Adopted in 2018, it served as a “compass” for building transport infrastructure.
Most of the major projects he planned have been completed, or already launched in the case of the third metro line.
But pending the drafting and adoption of a new plan, which will take several years, the files will evolve in legal limbo.
It's a bit as if the fans of the Pays de Cassel had beaten PSG.
After four and a half years of legal battle, the association 2pieds 2roues (2P2R), a fervent defender of soft modes, has just obtained the cancellation by the courts of the Mobilities Project (or PDU – Urban Travel Plan under its former name) .
This document, voted in 2018 by Tisséo after years of consultation with 115 municipalities of Greater Toulouse, constituted the "roadmap", the "compass" for the 3.8 billion (estimate at the time) of investments in transport planned for the period 2020-2025-2030.
This cancellation is final.
Jean-Michel Lattes, the president of Tisséo, has indeed decided not to be able to appear before the Council of State, the highest administrative court.
“I think that's enough now and that it's good to move forward,” says the man who is also a law professor.
Why was it cancelled?
When it launched the procedure, the 2P2R association had two grievances against the 2018 PDU. It considered that it was not ambitious enough in terms of developing travel on foot or by bicycle, and that it did not allow to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Against all expectations, it was on a third point that the administrative court of Toulouse in January 2021, then the administrative court of appeal last Thursday, based their cancellation: the absence of “reasonable alternatives”.
Official: this Thursday, January 19, 2023, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Toulouse rejects the appeal of Tisséo Collectivités following the cancellation of the #PDU Projet Mobilités 2020-2025-2030 by the Administrative Court (environmental law not respected )
The #PDU: definitely canceled pic.twitter.com/sNmAZu1azm
— 2️⃣Feet 2️⃣ Wheels Toulouse 🚶♀️🚴♀️🛴 (@2Pieds2Roues) January 19, 2023
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In other words, Tisséo, by concluding that a third metro line had to be built, should for example have had to prove, with a supporting study, that there was no more effective alternative solution.
The judges even cite the alternative scenario of the "railway star", in RER mode, now well established in the political debate.
“However, the metro is a line frozen in space, whereas the rail star can be of service to many inhabitants of the agglomeration, in particular those of the 2nd crown, and this in all directions”, abounds Boris Kozlow , the president of 2P2R.
Can projects suffer?
Theoretically, it is now the 2012 PDU that applies.
But most of the major projects of the PDU 2018 have been launched.
The cable car has taken off, the capacity of line A has been doubled, ten Linéo rapid bus lines are in service, the tram has been extended to Meet, the new exhibition center, and the first pickaxes of the metro line C were donated in December.
“Just before these inaugural works, a collective took us to court to have them arrested on the grounds that the PDU had been canceled at first instance, recalls Jean-Michel Lattes.
The judge did not accept the argument, he considered that the PDU is a planning instrument and that it does not impact the legal autonomy of the projects”.
But then,
would the scope of the PDU be only symbolic?
“Its cancellation is above all symbolic of the fact that they did not work, that there was a problem of method and that it is necessary to think differently than with blinkers”, attacks Boris Kozlow.
Even Jean-Michel Lattes does not want to devalue the document.
“The current situation is not natural.
It is an essential document.
It is a reference for many things – roads, traffic, parking, transport of goods – and therefore for many players,” he pleads.
In addition, projects more modest than line C of the metro, but essential for certain inhabitants, such as the express bus line between Toulouse and Muret, can no longer take advantage of the public consultation made for a canceled PDU.
It will therefore take a new and important consultation to carry them out during the long period of “legal vacuum”.
And now ?
Tisséo decided, well before the final cancellation by the court, to tackle a new Mobility Project for "the 2030-2040 decade".
It will be based on the famous “household survey” launched in December.
An “expensive, heavy but precise” study of the modes of travel of the inhabitants of the perimeter of public transport, while the latest figures, on the use of bicycles for example, date back more than ten years.
“We will pay particular attention to reasonable alternative solutions”, assures, scalded, the president of the organizing authority of public transport.
“And we will contribute, with our means, by defending active modes, well combined”, announces Boris Kozlow, who judges that “there are still too many road projects in the drawers of the metropolis”.
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