Paris: metro that ruins forest

The extension to the east of line 1 of the Parisian network passes through the Bois de Vincennes. The project opposes trees defenders and elected municipalities concerned by the three additional stations that will serve remote transport districts.

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In front of the top bicentennial oak of about thirty meters, Barbara Jakowska looks up in heaven: “Why do all a Ramdam when a town hall installs a flower tray on the sidewalk, if in parallel we kill the wood in Catimini “, wonders the Vincenne Landscape Planter. This pedunculate oak and 500 other trees are threatened to be shaved in case of extension of the metro line 1 from the Château-de-Vincennes station to the cities of Fontenay-sous-Bois (Val-de-Marne) and of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis).

For the creation of three future stations, 1.4 hectares of this natural site will be cleared, according to Ile-de-France Mobilies, and 6 hectares decommissioned, the time of the work (without impact on the trees). Indeed, the terminus of the current line not being deep enough, the site in the wood will be carried out not with a tunnel tree but to open trench, “as in 1900 during the construction of line 1”, note Pierre Serne, municipal councilor EELV de Montreuil.

At the approach of the public inquiry that will open on January 31, while the online petition “do not touch my wood” has already harvested a little more than 60,000 signatures, the ecologist party is faced At a dilemma supporting both the extension of the metro and the preservation of one of the large lungs of Paris. “This extension is essential for the energy transition, but it can not be realized on any condition,” said David Belliard, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of transforming the public space. In a context of global warming, Each tree counts in a mineral city like Paris. “

An old file

“It looks like they discover the file”, they are breathing among the elected cities concerned by the arrival of the metro. With a first public inquiry, launched in 1936, this extension has nothing new. In 1995, three routes are studied to disengorge both the A86 motorway and the RER line, the busiest in Europe. In 2013, for reasons of technical and financial feasibility, Ile-de-France Mobilies privileges the current route, which goes through the wood. The elected ecologist Pierre Serne, Vice President of Ile-de-France Mobilies from 2012 to 2015, co-facing the file at the time. “I warned that people would go on the tree if we realized this open pit”, “he says.

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/Media reports.