Elsevier

Cities

Volume 26, Issue 5, October 2009, Pages 266-279
Cities

The high-speed rail challenge for big intermediate cities: A national, regional and local perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2009.07.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous research on high-speed rail (HSR) and urban development has underlined the need for a multilevel analysis and has differentiated between HSR’s impact on small cities and on big intermediate cities. This paper focuses on big intermediate cities along HSR lines, develops a multilevel analysis at national, regional and local levels and examines HSR’s selective capacity to transform time distances and accessibility.

The paper draws together data which make clear how HSR opens up new opportunities for these big intermediate cities. Specifically, it analyses three particular cases: Córdoba and Zaragoza in Spain and Lille in France. This case-study approach, taking account of specific circumstances and contexts, facilitates the understanding of the similarities and differences in HSR’s impact on urban and territorial development.

Introduction

The high-speed rail (HSR) network in Europe, now in a continuous process of growth, reflects the differences in rail services and technological culture of each country involved, their different city systems and hierarchies and their distinct political and decentralisation frameworks. France and Spain have certain common characteristics in this area: new HSR lines with few and distant stations, strongly centralised towards their capitals, the initial goal having been to connect Paris and Madrid with the major urban areas in each country. The challenge of competing directly with air transport has driven HSR services to operate along the shortest and most direct routes at a speed of 300 km/h, an avion sur rails rationale (Plassard, 1991).

Scientific studies have explained how, in principle, the incipient HSR network is established along those corridors where the transport demand is greatest (Vickerman et al., 1999, Gutiérrez Puebla et al., 2006). These HSR lines between the main national and international metropolitan areas connect together other urban areas of different characteristics along their way. French researchers like Troin (1995) classify HSR stations according to their location and connection to the city. Likewise, Ureña et al. (2006) suggest another method of classification of the intermediate cities along HSR corridors, based on their size and distance from the metropolis (head of the line), arguing that these particular factors strongly condition the distinct possibilities opened up by HSR: differentiating between small cities half an hour’s travel away from a metropolitan area, small cities one hour away from a metropolitan area and big cities located in between several metropolitan areas.

Previous research on HSR has concentrated on its effects at one particular spatial level: international (Vickerman, 1997), national (Ureña et al., 2006), regional (Blum et al., 1997, Sasaki et al., 1997) and local (Ureña et al., 2005, Garmendia et al., 2008). However, a multilevel analysis has increasingly been advocated (Menerault, 2006, Greengauge 21, 2006, Garmendia, 2008) in order to reach a satisfactory understanding of HSR’s territorial implications. Multilevel analysis is especially necessary given that many activities which take place in a particular location do so as a result of its relation with other locations (Dupuy and Geneau, 2007). In particular, high-speed transportation systems with distant points of access (stations) require analysis across national, regional and local levels, because they can significantly transform time distances.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on HSR by developing the analysis of big intermediate cities located between several metropolitan areas, and offering a multilevel perspective. Specifically, it draws together the HSR experiences of three big intermediate cities in Spain and France: Córdoba, sited between Madrid, Sevilla and Málaga; Zaragoza, between Madrid and Barcelona; and Lille, between Paris, Brussels and London, at three distinct spatial levels: national, regional and local (in the case of Lille, the national level is in fact international, because it includes two metropolises in other countries, England and Belgium).

The aim of this paper is to discuss the territorial implications of HSR in these big intermediate cities, which previous research has identified as a distinct case-study area as against small intermediate cities or metropolitan areas at the head of the lines (Ureña et al., 2006). In particular, the article discusses:

  • The capacity of HSR to offer new locational advantages to big intermediate cities, strengthening their metropolitan accessibility, which may transform traditional city roles.

  • The capacity of HSR to stimulate the attraction of metropolitan passengers and activities to big intermediate cities.

  • The regional operation and usefulness of HSR and its capacity to transform the big intermediate cities’ regional roles.

  • The scope and territorial significance of HSR-related urban development projects.

The fact that each city and region has distinctive characteristics clearly makes generalisation a more complex matter. Furthermore, the descriptive methodology employed in the analysis itself imposes certain limits on the drawing of objective conclusions. This paper, however, argues that a focus on these HSR connectivity issues, within different political and technical contexts and at several spatial levels, allows a more profound understanding of the similarities and differences in HSR’s implications for urban and regional development (Pol, 2002).1

Section snippets

The case-study: criteria and definitions

As mentioned above, the decision to focus on big intermediate cities along HSR corridors results from the previous research on HSR’s territorial implications by Ureña et al. (2006). The recognition of similarities between the Spanish and the French cases, as regards the organising principles of the HSR infrastructure and its territorial layout, has led to the in-depth study of the effects of HSR on the big intermediate cities in both countries (Fig. 1).

The criteria for defining the intermediate

Changes in metropolitan connectivity

Some of these big intermediate cities have been located within major transportation corridors over history, with many important economic and personal transactions passing through them (Córdoba and Zaragoza). The 20th century changed their transport connections in two ways: motorways strengthened their links with the intermetropolitan corridors, but air transport resulted in most intermetropolitan business trips not passing through them, thereby weakening their connectivity. In other cases, big

Conclusions

Previous research on HSR and urban development has, on the one hand, underlined the need for multilevel analysis and has, on the other hand, differentiated between the consequences for small and big intermediate cities. This paper takes up these arguments and focuses on big intermediate cities along HSR lines and on their regional system of smaller cities at national, regional and local level. Specifically, it draws on three particular cases: Córdoba and Zaragoza in Spain and Lille in France,

Acknowledgements

This study was assisted by a combined grant from the Spanish National Research and Development Plan and the Ministry of Public Works. We would also like to thank the referees of this paper for many helpful comments.

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