The change in leadership at the Metropolis could well give serious momentum to metro E. Thomas Rudigoz, mayor of the 5th district and elected representative of the metropolitan majority, has confirmed that the metro project designed to serve western Lyon is now prioritized over the western Lyon express tram, the famous TEOL, according to statements relayed by an article from Actu Lyon.
For the elected official, metro E must not experience another political change of direction. Speaking on BFM TV, he defended the idea of quickly launching construction so that the project would be far enough along to no longer be abandoned in a few years.
Goal: go too far to turn back
Thomas Rudigoz is pursuing a particularly clear strategy: move fast to make the E metro virtually impossible to cancel. The mayor of the 5th district believes the project had already benefited from significant preparatory work before being halted under the previous ecological majority. The elected official particularly reproaches Bruno Bernard for prioritizing other transportation solutions before abandoning the TEOL in turn. According to him, these successive changes would have cost several years to a project that could have been much further along today. The new majority therefore wants to avoid repeating this scenario. The idea is simple: shift the E metro from the status of a political project to that of a genuine construction site, with enough work underway so that a potential change in power cannot easily put the matter back on the table. A project already studied, but not yet ready to launch
Still, relaunching the E metro won't happen by simply pressing a button. Thomas Rudigoz himself acknowledges that the project will need to go back through the financial review process, with a new analysis of the operation's cost. However, the technical studies represent a significant advantage for the Metropolis. A large portion of the preparatory work would already have been completed and could be updated rather than entirely redone, even though certain data will necessarily need to be refreshed.
For the mayor of the 5th district, certain elements of the route must absolutely not be questioned. Serving Point du Jour and Ménival is notably among the points he considers essential in the future version of the E metro. This line should make it possible to better connect western Lyon to downtown Lyon, an area regularly facing traffic and transportation challenges.
The project could thus become one of the major structural issues of the next metropolitan mandate.
Source : Actu Lyon