A festive (?) and protest gathering will take place this Saturday, March 8 at Nice train station at 3 p.m. The event is sparked by the stagnant situation of the Nice-Breil/Roya-Tende-Cuneo/Ventimiglia line, whose service frustrates the users. In fact, this deadlock is due to several reasons, and the future appears more than uncertain despite everyone’s expectations.
The users of the Nice-Breil/Roya-Tende-Cuneo/Ventimiglia railway line are exasperated by the unbearable situation they have endured for several months.
This situation worsened after the landslide on January 30 at Bon Voyage, on lands owned by the Nice Metropolis, cutting off rail traffic for a minimum of 6 months. A replacement bus service does not adequately ensure the essential connections for continuing social, economic, and tourist activities.
As for the Ventimiglia-Breil-Tende-Cuneo connections, only 2 Italian trains (instead of 8 before December 14, 2013) run at schedules that do not allow for socio-economic activities, and at a speed limited to 40 km/h by RFF upstream of Breil, extending the journey time from 25 minutes before December 15 to 50 minutes.
These two cross-border lines, which form a common network, serve 4 valleys, 3 regions, and two countries.
Their demands:
– To the Prefect: to obtain from the SNCF the immediate implementation of shuttle trains between Ariane and Breil, complemented by an efficient downstream and upstream bus service; we fully support the vote for this made by the Regional Council on February 21.
As for the upstream bus service between Breil and the other villages of the Roya, it should not be permanent, but remain until the work to secure the section north of Breil is completed.
– To RFF: to carry out these urgent safety works on the Breil-Tende section during this stoppage of French TER traffic.
– To the Metropolis: to immediately engage everything in its power and duty to solve the Bon Voyage landslide problem as soon as possible, thus allowing the resumption of train traffic at the earliest.
– To the French and Italian States: to stop passing the “ball,” thereby evading their responsibilities, and to finally revise the 1970 Convention, as they committed to at the Franco-Italian summit on November 20, 2013.
– To the Local Authorities (Regions, General Council, Italian Provinces, municipalities…), on both sides of the border, to quickly engage in a common European project for the preservation and development of this cross-border railway network.
Will they be heard? There is more than room for doubt!
