So that is organized in Marseille this Monday, May 5, the launch of the National Conference Ambition France Transports (read our article) In the presence of Prime Minister François Bayrou, Gomet ‘, attached to the vitality of the local debate, gives the floor to Hervé Menchon, an environmental assistant to the mayor of Marseille. He delivers his vision of transport for Marseille in this platform by taking example on the sensitive development file in the Marseille city of the South Urban Boulevard.
This Monday, May 5, on the occasion of the opening of the National Conference “Ambition France Transports” by Prime Minister François Bayrou, I wish, as elected Ecologists-Eelv in Marseille, directly concerned by the route of the South Urban Boulevard (Bus), recall the priorities which must guide any policy of mobility worthy of the issues of the 21st century: territorial justice, ecological coherence and responsibility in the face of climate emergency.
Marseille is today at the crossroads, provided that it is not a crossroads of Rocades. Yes, our city needs massive investments in its public transport infrastructure, after decades of under-funding and an overly late awareness of the public authorities, especially the metropolis.
The efforts are still vague or too limited in the face of the magnitude of the climatic, social and territorial issues
The metropolis recently started certain developments with the announcement of projects in favor of public transport and soft mobility. But these efforts are still vague or too limited in the face of the extent of the climatic, social and territorial issues. While other French metropolises accelerate their transition and get ahead, Marseille remains stuck in a structural delay, inherited but still maintained: we were already the latter in terms of public transport and a modal part of active mobility; At the rhythm of Martine Vassal, we will not catch up with any delay.
And that cannot justify that we continue, in reverse of the climatic objectives displayed, to waste millions to unroll miles of bitumen ribbons through precious green or natural spaces.
The current bus project threatens three major sites of the wooded heritage of the South Marseille: the Jardins Josephs Joseph Aiguier, the Parc de la Mathilde and the Pinède du Roy d’Espagne. These spaces are not simple green areas: these are lungs for our neighborhoods, refuges for biodiversity and islets of freshness that have become vital under a climate that heats up more and more violently. I ask for their complete sanctuarization and therefore the full bypass of these spaces by any infrastructure project.
I also call for the Pine forest of the Roy of Spain to be classified as a classified wooded area (EBC), in order to permanently protect it from any artificialization.
In the current context, it is incomprehensible that public funding is still directed to projects from the past and overwhelmed, designed primarily for the individual use of the car, even though the ministers also call for a massive decarbonation of the transport sector.
We have to stop funding road infrastructure whose purpose remains the increase in automotive traffic
We have to stop funding road infrastructure, the purpose of which remains the increase in automotive traffic which causes so much carbon emissions, air pollution and health damage. The state today sets ambitious objectives in terms of sustainable mobility; It is our duty to respect them, without pretense, with consistency and requirement.
Another project that the bus is not only possible, but vital. There are concrete, more sober and better thought alternatives, which meet the mobility needs of the inhabitants without sacrificing our natural areas. By relying on existing roads, by strengthening public transport and developing active mobility, we can offer a more intelligent, more economical and more lasting vision of mobility in Marseille.
Each urban planning becomes a political act with a serious consequences
What I propose is not immobility: it is a change of course. It is not a refusal to act, but the will to do better. While the effects of climate change is more tangible every day, provoking human losses and major environmental imbalances, each urban planning becomes a political act with a heavy consequences.
It is time to fully assume a contemporary, responsible vision, up to the issues. The cities and metropolises that will adapt will be those that have been able to give up the short -term clientelist comfort to embrace a courageous and lucid long -term policy. I will remain fully mobilized to carry this requirement.
Marseille deserves better than a project inherited from another century. It deserves infrastructure designed for tomorrow, up to its inhabitants, its territory and the climatic challenges of our time.
Hervé Menchon
Deputy mayor of Marseille in charge of marine biodiversity, management, preservation and development of marine, coastal and island spaces, beaches and seaside equipment, boating, sailing and diving, the development of the tradition of the sea and the sea.
Metropolitan advisor, representative of the mayor of Marseille at the Calanques National Park,
Representative of the mayor of Marseille at the Bleu Plan, Marseille president of the Baie Committee
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