The accessibility of the metro, “this old, convoluted network, with narrow corridors”, is a long-term objective, said the former prime minister.
RATP CEO Jean Castex said on Wednesday “fully available” to work to make the Paris metro accessible to people with reduced mobility as Valérie Pécresse wants, but “It will take time and money”he warned. “When the first important law on universal accessibility in 2005 was promulgated (…) the direction that was taken for people in wheelchairs was to make the surface network fully accessible”indicated the former Prime Minister, during his hearing at the National Assembly for his reappointment at the head of the RATP, validated Wednesday by the deputies.
“The historic metro is unfortunately not accessible to these people (…) but there is still the surface network”underlined the former Prime Minister. He recalled the work undertaken before the Olympics to upgrade bus stops, so that they are at the right height to guarantee boarding vehicles. But “our fellow citizens with disabilities (…) suffer even more from an overloaded network”recognized Jean Castex, insisting on the need to improve the bus service which “loses too many customers because he goes less and less quickly in town”.
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A cost estimated between 15 and 20 billion euros
Metro accessibility, “this old, convoluted network, with narrow corridors”is a long-term objective and therefore “it is necessary at all costs that everything that is already supposed to be accessible be made accessible quickly and more”he declared. Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, who also chairs the transport organizing authority Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), announced during the Paralympic Games her intention to launch the metro accessibility project , a black spot in Parisian transport for people with reduced mobility.
She estimated that this would cost between 15 and 20 billion euros, an amount confirmed by Jean Castex, over a period of 20 years. “Technically, it’s cotton”added the RATP boss. “We know, for example, that there are stations, I tell you, where we cannot take an elevator down. There aren’t many, but there are some.”he warned. Like Valérie Pécresse, he called for starting this project with line 6, the only line where a study has already been carried out, for a cost of work estimated between 600 and 800 million euros.
