These are struggles that sometimes take ten years to complete, which can fail discreetly and then start again thanks to an unexpected boost.
Supported by groups of inhabitants at the end of the line, relayed by elected officials, the battle against railway noise is a reality that the Ile-de-France regional council wants to revive by voting an agreement with the State, SNCF Réseau and Bruitparif , responsible for measuring noise pollution.
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Ile-de-France: the noise of transport breaks our health
The first objective of this collaboration is to propose an acoustic diagnostic campaign in 62 municipalities in the Ile-de-France region (the complete list can be consulted here), including 16 in Seine-Saint-Denis, identified for their exposure to noise pollution from trains.
These evaluations will be carried out by SNCF Réseau, at the request of the municipalities and will make it possible to update the black spots.
The second priority is to support rail noise reduction work advocated by local authorities and to try to find "innovative solutions".
With the recovery plan, an envelope of 15 million euros is precisely provided for in the framework of the amendment to the contract of the State-region plan for 2021 and 2022.
The north of Paris, Saint-Denis and Versailles on the front line
"The idea is to prepare the ground well in advance so that projects go faster," explains Fanny Mietlicki, director of Bruitparif.
Today, the realization of a noise barrier takes for example between ten and twenty years!
»Sleep disorders, embarrassment, stress… Noise pollution can cause the loss of several years of healthy life, according to Bruitparif data.
The sectors with the highest values for trains are the 18th arrondissement of Paris, Saint-Denis and Versailles (Yvelines), according to its 2019 report.
Bruitparif manages fourteen permanent stations in Ile-de-France, which only measure railway pollution.
Four of them are located in Seine-Saint-Denis and a fifth will be installed in this department during 2021, in Villemomble, to address the acoustic problems related to the brakes that equip the convoys of goods.
"We are going to follow the evolution of the equipment and observe whether the gradual replacement of the cast iron brake blocks on the wagons by composite brake blocks will improve the situation", specifies Fanny Mietlicki.
The Bourget marshalling yard in Drancy, presented as the worst railway black spot in Ile-de-France from an acoustic point of view, must also be subject to a new approach this year to reduce braking noise.
"Since the summer we have suffered vibrations, it's a disaster"
It is also the interest of the remobilization advocated by the region: studying the behavior of new rolling stock, testing SNCF Réseau innovations or different intervention methods.
The regional council cites for example the installation, planned for 2022, of mini-acoustic screens, concerning the metal rail bridge of the Chantiers, in Versailles.
In 2017, this structure has already been the subject of a previous phase of work intended to absorb and reduce noise.
“The first soundproofing intervention was eagerly awaited but the results are quite disappointing,” regrets Wenceslas Nourry, vice-president of the Chantiers neighborhood council and municipal councilor for the majority.
"And since last summer, we have experienced vibrations, it's a disaster," he warns.
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In Malakoff (Hauts-de-Seine), rue Paul-Vaillant-Couturier, Bruitparif has installed a sensor this time to assess the level of unexpected noise pollution generated by the stops and slow passages of TGVs heading to the Châtillon technicentre.
Soon a soundproofing wall in Saint-Denis
Less innovative but no less important, the installation of noise barriers is also underway in Malakoff-Vanves, over more than 1.1 kilometers along the tracks of the N line of the Transilien, TER and TGV.
But the installation of two of the ten planned panels has so far been compromised for technical reasons.
Insulation work on the facades is also in the pipes.
Finally, the good news concerns the Cité Paul-Eluard, in Saint-Denis, where the installation of a soundproofing wall should begin in April, to protect the 300 homes from the din of trains running on one of the largest railway lines in Europe, departing from Gare du Nord.
Preparatory work has just started.
225 meters long and 5 meters high, the structure was presented to residents in September 2019. The investment represents more than 6 million euros.