The Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed rail line project is finally back on track. At the end of last week, the 24 local authorities involved in the Nouvelle Aquitaine and Occitanie regions approved the financing plan for the work, worth a total of 14.3 billion euros. They will thus contribute €5.6 billion, with the State funding 40% of this infrastructure project and the European Union contributing the remaining 20%.
In a press release, the Prefect of the Occitanie region expressed his satisfaction at " the signature of this financing plan, decisive step for the creation of the Société du Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest, which must take place before 23 April" the date set by the Mobility Orientation Law (LOM). Only environmental associations and elected ecologists, including the EELV mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, spoke out against this rail project.
Saving time to Toulouse, but also in Occitanie and Nouvelle Aquitaine
With work due to start in 2024, this new HIGH-SPEED LINE will make it possible to commissioning in 2030This will enable passengers to travel from the capital to the pink city in three hours, compared with four at present. And this has been the case since the opening of the LGV Océane in July 2017 which reduced the Paris-Bordeaux journey time to 2 hours 04 minutes. On the 240 km Bordeaux-Toulouse section, which will be completed in one hour, two new TGV stations will be built, at Agen and Montauban.
The Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest also plans to build a second 160 km branch (55 km of which will be shared with the first). between Bordeaux and Dax. Just three hours from Paris, the spa town in the Landes region aims to reinforce its status as a tourist gatewayA new SNCF railway station is also planned for Mont-de-Marsan. A new SNCF station is also planned for Mont-de-Marsan. The SNCF estimates that passengers will benefit from a time saving of 20 minutes on the " all links to the south of Aquitaine (Basque country), Béarn and Bigorre (Pau, Lourdes and Tarbes) and beyond to Spain" .
A connection to the Spanish high-speed network will be built at Hendaye from 2028, enabling high-speed trains to reach Bilbao in 1h55 from Bordeauxand Madrid or Barcelona (in 3h50 from Bordeaux). Thanks to this "south-south" connection between these two branches of the future high-speed line, SNCF expects to be able to travel from Agen to Bayonne in 1 hour 15 minutes, from Toulouse to Bayonne in 2 hours 15 minutes and from Toulouse to Bilbao in 3 hours 10 minutes. In addition, Bayonne will be accessible from Bordeaux in 1h05 and from Paris in 3h15. All in all, five million passengers a year are expected to use the Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax lines as soon as they enter service.
Companies will benefit from more sustainable mobility
So, with several towns within 3 hours of Paris (Dax, Toulouse, Bayonne, Biarritz...), the train will gain solid market share to air and car by 2030, with an estimated two million fewer journeys by air and 7.7 million fewer journeys by car by the time the project is completed. This is bad news on the horizon for Air France, which currently serves Toulouse, Pau and Biarritz. On the other hand, it's good news for the carbon footprint of companies, whose employees are increasingly being encouraged to favour rail travel for their business trips.
