Jean Coldefy : “The free public transport is a decoy “

Forum. Then, every year that we beat records of temperature, transport still accounted for a third of CO2 emissions. The car is responsible for 80 % of the kilometres travelled and the Ile-de-France keeps the European record for caps with 400 km identified daily. It is in this context that reflections on free public transport within the capital region, as elsewhere. Make public transport more attractive and reduce the road traffic, this would be the purpose of such a measure. But the free public transport is not a decoy ?

Today, the cost of car use is two times higher for the user than that of public transport. It is necessary to question the real impact of such a policy on road traffic. It may be noted that this measure is the exclusive preserve of small towns and, with rare exceptions, medium-sized cities. However, on these territories, these are the companies who financed it : the Mutual Niort, ArcelorMittal in Dunkerque.

The larger cities have experienced the free (Portland, Austin, Denver) are all returned back for reasons of funding of the networks – are important because of urban growth, decline in the quality of service and increase of uses which are not relevant to public transport on short distances until then carried out on foot or by bike.

Urban tolls

The French would they really addicted to the car ? The reality is quite different. But the alternatives to car use are all the more low as the distance from the center of urban areas, which concentrate the employment and mobility services. The price of housing in the urban centres have also sharply increased in the last twenty years, which has forced many social categories away from city cores with an increase in the very important distances…

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