The strikes follow and resemble each other with, alas, the stress of users forced to activate a plan “B” for failing public transport. While waiting for the establishment of a minimum service, those who cannot postpone their obligations for this Tuesday will not be able to do other than open the doors of their garage.
What he will do easily in the provinces where the use of the automobile is predominant in commuting (3 out of 4 working people). Or borrow someone else’s car through carpooling services whose business explodes with each national movement.
With two out of ten TER scheduled for Tuesday and virtually no Intercités, it will be better to activate the “telework” option as the SNCF advises for those who are not on strike. The situation is hardly better on fast connections with one in three TGVs. Medium or long routes in France, with very affected air links, will therefore go by road.
The owner of a car benefits from his comfort and can decide his time of departure and his journey with the traffic information GPS which locates traffic jams in real time. These will not fail to occur near the big cities where it will be very difficult to penetrate.
In the Paris region where TER and RER will mostly remain docked, Île-de-France Mobilités offers carpooling “to all Ile-de-France residents during strike days in partnership with three carpooling platforms (Karos, Klaxit and Blablacar Daily)”. A healthy initiative but also a clear admission of powerlessness to appeal openly to the automobile, which is indeed the Swiss army knife of mobility.
Only the traffic restrictions in the capital where the nibbling of surfaces dedicated to the automobile risks causing total thrombosis will limit travel in the capital. Bicycles and scooters can, at great risk for those who use them and pedestrians, make up for this. If, however, they have not been monopolized by the 55,000 civil servants of the city, exempted from work today by Anne Hidalgo.