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ABSTRACT
The paper discusses the influence of metropolitan integration and high-speed rail (HSR) connections on urban development around HSR stations situated at networks centred on the capital. This paper analyses HSR cities located up to 1 hour from the metropolitan centres of Madrid and Paris. New findings are presented concerning the development of HSR station surroundings, arriving at specific rules that include not only station locations and city characteristics but also the available types of HSR networks/services and distance from the metropolis. The paper also works to expand the discussion about the relevance of radial versus tangential relationships in urban and regional spatial planning.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Within the limits of this paper, urban developments are considered entire projects concerning business, retail or residential real estate either around the station or in the city, linked to the opening of the HSR.
2. This paper does not seek to consider a deeper influence on specific types of real estate development (i.e., housing, offices, and retail). It considers residential, office and industrial developments and includes only equipment or infrastructure that either are part of these developments or are related to station accessibility.
3. In France, residential prices are not free data.
4. Lille is not considered, although the population of its municipality is below this number because the population of its urban area clearly exceeds it.
5. The three closer stations (20–35 km), which are all located within the continuous urban Paris area, are considered metropolitan stations; they are linked to the metropolitan area by suburban train.
6. The stations are connected by two conventional railway tunnels, which are accessible to HSR services equipped with two gauge interchangers. There are plans to link these two stations with a third HSR tunnel.
7. HSR services by-passing Madrid without stopping deliver shorter travel times than those bypassing Paris, whereas those passing through Madrid or Paris and stopping at some of the central stations have similar times (passing through Madrid takes 56 min, whereas by-passing Paris takes between 38 and 54 min).
8. The threshold considered to differentiate medium-sized cities from small-sized cities varies within the literature and according to country (Solís, Mohíno, and Ureña Citation2015).
9. There are two reasons that the comparison considers passengers in qualitative terms but does not systematically include the precise number of passengers. The first reason is that these data have not been made available by each city’s railway companies. The second reason is that the authors prefer to explore the influence of the potential number of passengers (i.e., services) instead of actual ones: actual passengers may be a consequence of the development co-induced by the HSR services.
10. The number of services by population is very high when the number of inhabitants is very small.
11. In Madrid, including one new station in each by-pass to transform purely tangential services into mixed radial-tangential services would increase their viability. There are possible locations connected to the Madrid conventional suburban rail/metro network.
12. Three years before the HSR station opened, the Mayor and the President of the Le Mans urban community suggested to the president of the general council and the chamber of commerce and industry that they build a joint association to study and promote the business district around the central station. Initially, the regional council refused to join this association because of the parties’ different political agendas.
13. Since 1980, the urban community of Le Mans has contained important land reserves that have no specific purpose. An area of 87,442 m2 for the HSR station and Novaxis was purchased without pre-emption (only 991 m2) (Chevalier Citation1995).
14. The Agency for Economic Development (ADEMA) and the location of ‘Mutuelles de Le Mans’ were crucial in the promotion of this business district. The strategy also included two technological parks: ‘Université’ and ‘Circuit du Mans’.
15. These were one-quarter of those in Paris: each square metre costs an average of 4,300 € in Paris and 1,175 € in Le Mans.
16. The second Novaxis stage, initially planned for 1995, was postponed to 1997.
17. Approximately 50,000 m2 of new offices were built, and the development housed 2,000 jobs, half of which were newly created positions; 1/3 of the companies located in Novaxis came from Le Mans, 1/3 came from the Paris region, and the other 1/3 were new firms. Today, Novaxis encompasses 140,000 m2 of offices, 132 enterprises and 3,250 jobs.
18. See http://www.blog-habitat-durable.com/article-novaxud-histoire-d-un-projet-urbain-futur-112199851.html.
19. There was also consultation among local actors, especially between the department and region; however, Reims operated in a solitary manner for a long time. There were also publicity campaigns for ‘45 min by TGV from Paris’ and ‘Invest in Reims’ by a development agency to renew the city’s image. Moreover, after local ones, there were also new external real estate actors.
20. Including the TGV association and city, department and regional councils, as well as private actors and the SNCF.
21. In 2008, a 70-ha industrial area was financed by the ‘Communauté de communes de Haute-Picardie’ (26 rural towns with 8,000 inhabitants) (65%) and the general council of the department of Somme, the Feder, the French state and the region (35%). A logistic park named ‘Actilogis’ on 11 ha with an HQE label was to be built by Nexity Geprim in 2010. An agro-industry village, ‘Village Agro’, was also to be built.
22. This phenomenon has also occurred in Ashford (near London), as shown by Mohino, Loukaitou-sideris, and Ureña (Citation2014).