Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

ask for the South line route, knowing full well it wasn't feasible. I was a littlediscouraged, and I didn't hide it. [Pause.}"On the other hand, yes, he's quite bright enough to know exactly whathe's doing. In 1980 I had a revelation: the southern part of the Petite Ceinturein Paris. I knew someone at the SNCF, Charles, who was responsible for thesuburbs. He told me confidentially, making me promise not to use his nome:'I've got an ideo. It's the Petite Ceinture, the Pc . It's been closed since 1939;there's potential for traffic. It's not doing the SNCF any good, so maybe they'dlet you use it.' I told the RATP (I'm pretty sure it was around 19801, 'Why notthe Petite Ceinture?'" [no. 21; see the map in the frontmatter]At the Institute for Transportation Research, M. Desclees and M. Lievin aresitting in a large sunny office overlooking lawns and fountains. In the distance,one can hear the rumbling of traffic on the turnpike leading south.M. Desclees:"The problem with Aramis is that they looked all over for a place to putit-Nice, Montpellier, * the southern suburbs-and they finally made the worstchoice of all: inside Paris itself.""Why was that the worst choice? I thought it was indispensable as atechnological showcase. ""No, it's the worst, because there's a low I learned after years with theministry: you can never introduce major innovations in urban transportation inParis. For three reasons:"First, because technologically speaking everything gets very complicatedright away: there are always huge fluctuations in volume, and you're alwaysright at the outer limits from the word go. You can't start small and expandprogressively."The second reason is political. In Paris, you never know who's in charge:there's the mayor, the regional authorities, the prefect, the mnister t . No-*It was in Montpellicr that the preliminary studies went farthest. GeorgesFreehe, mayor of Montpellier since 1977, a leftist and a great modernizer, wanted toimplement a revolutionary public transportation system. The loop he wanted to insertin the old city was well adapted to Aramis, because it was not in competition withan existing metro. When the project was abandoned in 1987, Freche wrote a virulentpamphlet in protest.t Because of its size and importance, Paris is a very complex entity from anadministrative standpoint. There arc administrative agencies at the city level, thedepartmental level, and the regional level (the Seine Department is also part of thelIe-de-France Region). In addition, since Paris houses the national government, manyadministrative functions are carried out directlv bv a prefect at the State level. Thereare also numerous ad hoc organizations linking Pris with the suburbs.SHILlY SHALLYING IN THE SEVENTIES