What to do with the thousands of rural railway stations that merely receive a few dozen passengers a day? Must we simply accompany their transformation into corporate offices or housing, or on the contrary invest to invent a new rural mobility? La 27e Région, the Bourgogne Region and the SNCF (French railway company) decided to examine the potential of these stations as platforms for transport, but also as nodes of activity and local public service relays. The residency team focused on imagining the future rural station in Corbigny, a town of 2,000 inhabitants in Bourgogne.
Together with civil servants and the townspeople – citizens, shopkeepers, community organizations – the team defined a plan for revitalizing the station based on four avenues of action: turning the station into a transportation hub; improving the availability and visibility of local transportation; identifying the station as a symbolic place to be strengthened and vitalized by creating an active network of stations throughout rural Burgundy and beyond; developing the station’s strategic position as a vector for the development of tourism and leisure activities in the area.
Following this residency, projects were investigated and tested. One project, for instance, is a one stop ticket office located both in the station and the town and offering information for inhabitants and visitors on all the types of transport available in the area, whether public, private or shared.
Learn more about the project: download our French deliverable
And discover it in photos
