The LGV Picardie is a proposed high-speed railway line running between Paris and Calais, via Amiens, in France.
When the LGV Nord was planned, the residents of the city of Amiens in the Picardy region campaigned for the line to run through Amiens. SNCF decided instead to build the new high-speed line on a more direct route between Paris and Lille. The Picardy region is now served by the TGV Haute Picardie station, though this has been criticised for its lack of intermodal connections, summarised by the saying, "station in a beetroot field".
The LGV Picardie would presumably deviate from the existing line north of the Gare du Nord and proceed directly to a new junction with the Calais branch of the LGV Nord to the east of Calais-Fréthun station. It is unclear how Amiens itself would be served, though the cheaper and more likely option would be to use existing infrastructure. Twenty minutes would be saved on the journey between Paris and Calais, thus making it possible to travel from London to Paris (Eurostar) in under two hours. An additional benefit would be to relieve congestion on the LGV Nord itself.
The French government have announced their future investment plans that are to be built by 2020, and LGV Picardie has not been included. However, it has been listed as planned in the longer term, presumably some time after 2020. On the 30 July 2010, the French government announced that LGV Picardie is now included in its SNIT transport infrastructure investment programme, for implementation between 2020 and 2030. The project is said to cost €4.8bn, and could potentially run via Amiens or Rouen.
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