The Metropolitan Conference, held this November 5, 2008 at the City Hall of the twentieth arrondissement of Paris, adopted the constitution and the principles of establishing joint association studies "Paris Metropolis "(SMEP), whose launch was announced at the foundation of the city last June 25. The accession of the communities included in the scope of the union, will be on a voluntary basis, by way of deliberation councils, community and general (but also the regional council that has to weigh in the process). Reflection on the structuring of the territory of the dense area of Ile-de-France is thus a new political dimension. Indeed, because membership in Greater Paris necessarily involves a discussion in each commune and in the deliberative assemblies, the process of institutional cooperation will benefit from full political validity (although until now the method of entry was more informal).
"The launch of Greater Paris is the result of a dynamic and pluralistic consensus found after an intense work that was conducted largely by mayors of the first ring Paris region, which worked alongside the Region and departments, and notably orchestrated by Pierre Mansat, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of relations with local authorities in the Ile-de-France (...) "wants to remind Philip Lawrence, Mayor of Sceaux and member of the Secretariat the Metropolitan Conference. Paris-Métropole and a credible government and in particular Secretary of State for Development of the Capital Region, Christian Blanc.
Three main objectives are assigned to the union: "1 The definition of possible partnerships for projects in metropolitan dimension, and that the identification methods, studies or working hypotheses that can be made available to local authorities and EPCI to facilitate the achievement of concrete projects that will have a lasting effect on the development of the town, 2 ° A reflection and proposals on financial solidarity and equalization of the various hypotheses on the one hand and pooling on the other hand within the city and regionally, 3 ° A discussion and proposals on changing the governance of metropolis. Discussions at the spring meeting of November 5, still a priority, that of the second objective: Paris-Métropole will primarily intended to study the implementation of a logic of pooling financial resources to respond effectively to the scale of a particularly dense urban area marked by high inequality, expectations of its people for transportation, housing and employment.
If the object of Greater Paris is strictly limited to conduct appropriate studies, with the support of existing technical unions in major traditional areas of public management that are planning, environment, transport , training or culture, these studies may lead to "projects of metropolitan interest," like what was in fact recommended by the Report Dallier (admittedly more radical in its proposals).
In transport and mobility, and metropolitan issues are particularly important. Recall that the Ile-de-France, 70% of trips are internal to the suburbs (EGT DREIF Source / INSEE, 2003). In the Val-de-Marne, 80% of trips from suburb to suburb are made by car. And even if they are made by public transport, the radial structure of the network usually involves transit through Paris intra muros. This situation weighs heavily on the networks. Today, the idea of building a metro ring, Arc Express, around Paris consensus and therefore the launch of studies has been acknowledged by the Region and the State within the CPER 2007-2013. Assurant a new mesh by connecting the radial lines of metro and RER existing Arc Express also facilitate access to many facilities (hospitals, universities ...) and centers of activity and employment (malls). This transport system could contribute to "structure" the dense area in the Paris region on the urban plan. But on this issue flagship, the Region intends to keep the hand as its President, Jean-Paul Huchon has made clear to elected officials of the Metropolitan Conference present: "On Arc Express, I put 30 million euros available STIF to conduct the studies, then we should not duplicate the same work twice, we do not reinvent the powder, because I'm not sure the SMEP do better with less money! But for local travel, bicycles, motorized traffic and electric cars, yes, there are complementarities to find. " The Region will maintain its leadership in programming modes heavy subregional communities of the metropolis is only asked to identify projects within the framework of the regional planning complementarity or for reasons of proximity. And on this point, Jean-Paul Planchou, Mayor of Cheltenham and Regional Councillor of Ile-de-France was clear: "The region will be a member of Greater Paris motor, simply because the Region is sponsoring the Blueprint The SDRIF, she is the author of the regional Plan of economic development, and is responsible for the regional pattern of training, but also shifts (note: the PDUIF) (...) Far from us at the regional level, the idea of imposing anything, but we do not want a structure, Ile within the perimeter, can impose its coherence.
The message of the Region in this regard, very well insofar as the statutes of Greater Paris are explicitly mentioned in the report of the Committee Planchou "Scenarios for the city: Paris - Ile de France tomorrow." The joint union must thus rely "on existing work and future for the metropolitan area, including those incurred on the preparation of master plan (SDRIF), consulting the" Future of the Paris metropolitan area "and the ad hoc committee of the Regional Council "Scenarios for the city: Paris - Ile de France tomorrow, "and taking into account the contributions of local authorities, EPCI, consular chambers, as well as ongoing discussions at the State and Parliament," the state statutes SMEP. To recall, the board Planchou proposed in transport, to "evolve to a STIF Union of Travel in Ile de France (SDIF), extending the powers of the STIF to all fields of sustainable mobility , that is to say by integrating: the operational network of express lanes of the Isle of France (800 km); capacity reservation rights of way for public transport, including taxis, multimodal information for all transport networks (transport and highways) the levying of Practice (part of the road fines, potential devices congestion charging), the organization of urban logistics. Designed to maximize the coherence of the various modes of travel and facilitate the sharing of roads of regional interest, this could well accompany the emergence of a coherent Organising Authorities Proximity (PDO), including the benefit of intercommunal strengthened, which in accordance with Decree No. 2005-664 of 10 June 2005 STIF may delegate certain powers relating to the exploitation of local public transport. "
The message of the Region in this regard, very well insofar as the statutes of Greater Paris are explicitly mentioned in the report of the Committee Planchou "Scenarios for the city: Paris - Ile de France tomorrow." The joint union must thus rely "on existing work and future for the metropolitan area, including those incurred on the preparation of master plan (SDRIF), consulting the" Future of the Paris metropolitan area "and the ad hoc committee of the Regional Council "Scenarios for the city: Paris - Ile de France tomorrow, "and taking into account the contributions of local authorities, EPCI, consular chambers, as well as ongoing discussions at the State and Parliament," the state statutes SMEP. To recall, the board Planchou proposed in transport, to "evolve to a STIF Union of Travel in Ile de France (SDIF), extending the powers of the STIF to all fields of sustainable mobility , that is to say by integrating: the operational network of express lanes of the Isle of France (800 km); capacity reservation rights of way for public transport, including taxis, multimodal information for all transport networks (transport and highways) the levying of Practice (part of the road fines, potential devices congestion charging), the organization of urban logistics. Designed to maximize the coherence of the various modes of travel and facilitate the sharing of roads of regional interest, this could well accompany the emergence of a coherent Organising Authorities Proximity (PDO), including the benefit of intercommunal strengthened, which in accordance with Decree No. 2005-664 of 10 June 2005 STIF may delegate certain powers relating to the exploitation of local public transport. "
In this context, the structuring of a PDO from the heart of town is it possible? Today, the few existing PDO does not always have a consistent perimeter, particularly because of the territorial deployment of intercommunal in Ile-de-France, which is not satisfactory. In fact, approaches to local travel plans (LDP) often struggle to find consistency. The development PLD structural require therefore systematically create structures of supra-community type of association, which only adds one more layer to the "layer cake". It is therefore ironic that the structuring of local basins of travel, expected address deficiencies and cumbersome system of Ile transport (also largely resulting from maintaining the rights of property line granted by the State for incumbents) , translates into a complex institution. In this regard, it is highly likely that the Balladur committee (which combines the new Prefect of the Ile-de-France, Daniel Canepa) do a number of proposals to streamline the map of intercommunal in the region. And if the new mobility services could just address this deficit intermunicipal?
The extension of Vélib, which were believed (wrongly) anecdote is actually the perfect expression of the difficulty of achieving a more efficient meshing of the modes of travel across the dense zone. The City of Paris has not taken wrong by working on his new project Autolib 'whose implementation should be deployed across nearly 80 municipalities in the small crown. A Delegation Public Service is currently being considered as the constitution of a Joint Union opened involving municipalities, departments and the Region, to revise the Urban Transport Plan d'Ile-de-France (PDUIF). In this regard, it is essential that these new mobility services fit into the overall urban transport policy as defined by the region but also in the local politics of urban planning, even if only to establish consistent guidelines on parking and roads.
The effective translation of these projects is dependent on the coordination skills of roads, parking, transport or movement, prerogatives which are scattered among different actors (municipalities, county councils, STIF, transport authorities proximity of local authorities, police headquarters).
Olivier Crepin, Planner
