I need more information about Nouvelle Grand Paris transport

[alanfrombigeasy]

First, an introduction.

Many of those that read TheOilDrum.com are familiar with me.

I am using French efforts as a model for what the USA should be doing. My blog may interest many of you
http://oilfreetransport.blogspot.com (I would also like your reaction and suggestions to my main blog).

I want to write an essay "A Revolution in Paris" about Nouvelle Grand Paris, and a Sierra Club magazine article about Grenelle and the update in June 2013. Using transport, rather than renewables to reduce carbon emissions.

I have a number of other credentials. I am on the Advisory Board for ASPO-USA. I wrote the chapter on freight for "Transport Beyond Oil" by Island Press. I am talking with Springer about my own book.

I can struggle to read French, I can understand spoken French (somewhat) but only if a Swiss is speaking And you would not like to hear what I do to your beautiful language.

Best Hopes,

Alan Drake

[phyvette]

Eh ben, a une demi seconde près, il était banni comme un vulgaire spameur, comme il y en a des paquets.

[alanfrombigeasy]

Je ne suis pas un spammeur vulgaire!

Alan Drake

[yvesT]

Hello Alan, welcome !

For le grand Paris (we use masculin for it), I don't know that much about it, the french wikipedia page might be a good start :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris
About the grenelle, that was the name used under Sarkozy, the current on going "action" is the debate on energy transition :
http://www.transition-energetique.gouv.fr/

[Raminagrobis]

Hello.

Well, to sum up.
Paris is a huge conurbation, with 2 million people inside the wall of the city, which is not that huge (100 km²), and 10 millions in suburbs.

Like many capitals, it has a concentric layout, from an historic center (medieval) with very high population density, high cultural value, prestigious places, high social class population, and a tendency to be turned into a museum; to suburbs that gradually gradually become less dense, have less or no historic value, a more recent urbanism (mostly post-WWII), and for a large part are impoverished (although there are "rich" towns in the suburbs too).
Top ranking economic activities (such as seats for multinational companies) were historically in Paris proper. However, due to high real estate cost, traffic congestion, taxes and other reasons, many have moved into business centers outside the administrative city, mostly La Défense west of Paris. By contrast, public establishment liked to national adminisration are still inside paris.

Paris and its has an extensive mass transit system. It has the following elements :

* A metropolitan system, with 16 lines totalling 220 km and 303 stations. Most of the network was build between 1900 and 1950. Since 1950, only one new line have been added (a fully automated line in 1998), but several extensions of existing lines (mostly into the suburbs) have been made. The metro is only in the central part of the conurbation (paris proper and close suburbs). The metro lines in the surburbs are only radial extensions of lines from paris, there is no transversal line for now.

* The system known are RER, with 5 lines - A to E. It was built strated in the 60's. While metropolitan use small gauge rolling stock and low voltage electrification (750 V), RER is a "real train", with railway gauge and electrification. It was build using to tunnels to interconnect old railways that used to be terminated in paris, and transform them into diagonal lines, that stretched across the cornurbation. They go much further into the surburbs than metro does.

* "Transilien" trains goes even further outside of the town. Unlike RER, they are terminated in old Paris surface stations.

* Streetcars are a more recent addition. They consitute a low cost, low capacity system in some suburban areas. The most notorious line follows the edge of paris in the south and east (in the long term, it's expected to make a full circle).

although this systems is one of the densest mass transit infrastructures in the world, it has many problems :
1 * Most lines are heavily congested at peak hours. This is partly due to excessive concentration of jobs in a few spots. This causes a rush into those spots in the morning, and out of them in the evening.
2 * Most of the infrastructure and rolling stock is aging.
3 * The system was designed for daily transit from suburbs to paris proper and back. Now more and more people transit from suburb to suburb, and there is no line for that. So they have to change train in paris, which makes their trip longer and contributes to congestion
4 * Surburban lines suffers heavily from social problems, with vandalism on the infrastructure and rolling stock, pick-pockets, verbal and physical violences, rapes, suicides, and other issues.
5 * The density of the system is excellent inside paris, but quickly decreases in the suburbs. As a result, suburban heavily relie on cars.
6 * The two international airports have no suitable connection to the city. Roissy is linked to paris with RER B, but the jonction is slow, crowded and unsafe, and doesn't terminate anywhere near business districts. Orly doesn't even have a direct connection to paris, a change is requiered.
7 * Transiliens, and, in some sections, RER, have to share "historic" railways with main line and freight trains, which leads to many traffic conflicts.


Several major programs were already in progress :
* transilien rolling stock is being renewed, with new Z50000 electric multiple units replacing various obsolete trainset
* Le metro line 1 is being automatized for increased capacity and reliability.
* RER E is being extended to la défense to increase transit capacity to this business center.
* Several existing metro lines are to be extended into the suburbs;

The grand Paris Project is a more radical approach. Its main component, which follows a string of earlier proposals, will be an high-capacity, automated, circular metro line, forming a full loop outside paris. It will be in connexion with many existing lines (metro, RER and streetcar). Its main purpose will be to avoid changes in paris for suburb-to-suburb connexions.

[yvesT]

6 * The two airports have no suitable connection to the city.

Un peu exagéré quand même, surtout pour Roissy avec le RER, et à Orly il y a quand même Orly Val
Sans parler des bus.
(mais enfin je ne prends quasiment plus l'avion ...)

[alanfrombigeasy]

Raminagrobis,

Thank you very much

You added much to the technical details I gathered from the internet. also if you have any suggestions for improvements to my discussion of French trams at
http://oilfreetransport.blogspot.com
I would appreciate it.

I believe that I understand the technical details and costs of the conservative plans of 2011 & 2012 for Le Grand Express. I am still confused about the recent revisions.

I know that:

- RER Line E will be extended by an 8 km tunnel and XX km above ground, taking the shortest of the three western spurs of RER Line A. Ridership will grow from 190,000 ? weekday pax to 650,000.
About 100,000 of these will be stolen from overloaded RER Line A. New statiosn will connect with RER Lines A & B and Metro Line 1. €2 billion (milliards)

Metro Line 1 will be automated and all RER lines will be speeded up (how ? Will this increase capacity)

I am particularly interested in costs. I multiple by 4.75, convert € to $, and say "we (in the USA) could do the same". One example is Washington DC.

I have worked with one of the original designers of the Washington DC Metro (1962-63) in a Phase II & III. Our plans should almost triple passenger-km.
http://oilfreedc.blogspot.com

My larger purpose is to show what can be done and use both Climate and Peak Oil as reasons to do so in the US.

My taunt of my fellow Americans is "Can Americans work with the speed, efficiency and determination of French bureaucrats ?" after showing what the French have done and are doing.

Again Thanks and Best Hopes,

Alan

[alanfrombigeasy]

My draft below. I plan to include that famous painting of the bare breasted woman leading the charge over the barricades

A Revolution in Paris

Every now and then, governments make infrastructure investments that change the way people & commerce move – and affect they way that they live. The daily rhythms of society are altered by a choice of where and how to invest, wisely or not.

Some such investments, such as the American investment in the Interstate Highway system, are quite questionable in their overall systemic impacts. Other choices stimulate the local and national economy by increasing efficiency, improve human health & well being, reduce air pollution, use fewer resources – both land and energy, increase National Security, reduce imports and reduce carbon emissions.

63% of the Swiss people voted in 1992 and again in 1998 to invest 30.5 billion Swiss francs over twenty years to improve their already excellent rail system. New tunnels under the Alps and a host of other improvements built for a better future.

Such a massive sum (equal to over $1 trillion for the USA, if adjusted for population and currency) had numerous goals, but the primary one was to shift freight over the Alps from trucks to electrified rail. A goal that has all of the above benefits.

The French people are in the midst of several such investments as part of a national program called Grenelle to reduce carbon emissions by a quarter in just a dozen years. Beyond the aggressive goals of Grenelle (ending in 2020), they have announced the greatest of them all – for Paris of course - in March, 2013.

Outside Paris, the French are building new tram (Light Rail) lines in almost every town of 100,000 & larger – and several smaller than 100,000. Their goal is 1,500 km of new tram lines for €21 billion this decade. They have accelerated the rate that new lines for TGV are being built – doubling the kilometers operating from 2009 to 2020. Meanwhile they are rapidly electrifying their other rail lines. They are aggressively supporting bicycling.

Le Nouveau Grand Paris was announced in March, 2013. This program will fundamentally change Greater Paris for the better. By 2030, 90% of Greater Parisians (Paris Metropole) will be within 2 km of an urban rail station – Metro, tram or RER (commuter rail on steriods).

In 2011 and 2012, the Conservatives announced Le Grand Express for Paris. This massive investment would have doubled the Paris Metro with 200 km (125 miles) of new subway lines. €21 billion invested from 2013 to 2025, 2 million new daily subway riders.

1.5 million of the 2 million expected new subway riders would be former bus riders. The operational savings from switching so many bus riders from bus to rail would pay for the €21 billion investment - hence the Conservative support.

Le Grand Paris was in addition to a massive tram (Light Rail) building program in Paris, with over 100 km of new tram (Light Rail) lines planned for the suburbs of Paris.

When the Socialists won the next election, the looked again at Le Grand Express and expanded it. They plan to increase annual spending by 50% (true ?) and add 5 years – to 2030 – to the oil free transportation plan for Paris.

By 2030, 90% of the 11.5 (8.2) million citizens of Greater Paris (the Paris Metropole) will be within 2 km (1.2 miles) of an urban rail station (Metro, tram, RER). With electric delivery trucks, and improved bicycling, much of Paris will become “oil optional”.

All of this will significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Background:

http://www.iledefrance.fr/fileadmin/con ... 3_500x.pdf

What is wrong ? What did I miss ? What should I add ?

Best Hopes,

Alan

[energy_isere]

My draft below. I plan to include that famous painting of the bare breasted woman leading the charge over the barricades ...............
What is wrong ? What did I miss ? What should I add ?

Best Hopes,

Alan

Raminagrobis, je te pressens pour répondre à Alan.

@ Alan , you mean this painting I guess :

''La Liberté guidant le peuple'' from Eugène Delacroix
this represent a scene in 1830 riots.

http://www.histoire-image.org/site/oeuv ... .php?i=234

[alanfrombigeasy]

A few minutes ago I posted the article on my blog - subject to revision.
http://oilfreetransport.blogspot.com/20 ... paris.html

And yes, it is that painting Delacroix I think.

Can you think of a better one to illustrate "A Revolution in Paris" as Oil Free Transport storms the barricades of the automobile and oil industries ?

Best Hopes,

Alan

My own avatar at https://www.facebook.com/alan.s.drake

Click the "Stand up for Freedom" image and see "Kick the Oil Habit". Perhaps someone should draw a French version ? A modern Delacroix

[Raminagrobis]

In financial terms, mass transit is not the most efficient way to save petroleum. 1 billion euros invested in metro lines saves much less oil than the same sum invested in energy efficency (like homes insulation).

[alanfrombigeasy]

In the USA, home heating oil is small and shrinking rapidly. The wholesale price of natural gas last winter was the energy equivalent of €9 per barrel. Now €19.barrel. Natural gas was cheaper than coal. So there is an immense economic incentive to switch from oil to natural gas or propane for heat.

In much of the United States, air conditioning (zero oil except in Hawaii & Puerto Rico) used more energy than heating. Certainly true of Nouvelle Orleans (29.8 latitude).

Transportation is consumes over 2/3rds of the oil used in the USA. If one does not count propane & butane as oil, then the % is higher. And the US is self sufficient in propane, butane and ethane.

Urban Rail promotes Transit Orientated Development, which uses significantly less energy of all types than Suburbia. The Chair of the Congress of New Urbanism claimed that TOD emitted 1/4th of the carbon of American Suburbia.

In addition, mew Metro lines last for centuries. FAR longer than adding insulation to modern American housing.

Best Hopes for more Mass Transit,

Alan Drake

[energy_isere]

Hi Alan,

what are the latest decision on exporting LNG gas from your country ?

- Some wants to ban exports in order to keep low price of gas on the market to supply industry at low cost (that is a view from consumer). But that might lead to too low price for shale gas producer. ( shale gas bubble ?)

- Some would like to allow exports in order to have higher gas price on the market to help shale gas industry and allow better commercial balance for the conuntry ( that is a view from producer ).

[yvesT]

Alan, about "Metro, tram or RER (commuter rail on steriods)."
RER is more in between subway and commuter rail, or railways standards going underground inside the city and able to use normal railways lines outside (as explained by Raminagrobis)
So more "metro on steroids".

[alanfrombigeasy]

One former LNG import terminal in Louisiana, Cheniere, has been granted an export permit, and they have signed a long term deal with the United Kingdom for a good % of their possible production.
The LNG price is based on the US wholesale price (@ Henry Hub, Louisiana).

That may be the only US LNG export terminal. For many years we have exported natural gas by pipeline to Mexico and we are beginning to do so to Eastern Canada.

Environmentalists are opposed to LNG exports because it means more tracking and less substitution for coal in the US. The chemical industry and other industries oppose LNG exports.

The Arthur Berman (ASPO-USA) view is US natural gas prices will climb soon enough to make export unattractive.

And Americans are not concerned about our chronic Balance of Trade deficit. We just print more dollars and hand those to the Chinese et al for goods.

Best Hopes ?

Alan