Overview
- Engineer Federico Antoniazzi’s synthesis of studies since 2014 finds the existing mixed-use corridor cannot deliver the required capacity or travel-time gains.
- The analysis argues that capacity on a shared line is constrained by the slowest services, making large increases for TER, freight and high-speed trains mathematically unworkable.
- Comparative figures show a new LGV would save 56 minutes on Bordeaux–Toulouse for €5.85 billion versus 27 minutes for €4.4 billion through renovation, with similar patterns on Bordeaux–Dax.
- Reaching LGV-like times on the current alignment would require removing about 125 level crossings and straightening 140 curves, creating greater land impacts and harder environmental mitigation than a purpose-built route.
- SGPSO steps up its communications push as work advances on two local bottlenecks, but open-country construction still depends on state financing, formal tenders and faces persistent opposition.