Can rail catch the train of urban redevelopment in suburbs?

In the 1970s and 1980s, French city planners criticised urban sprawl, the waste of space it entailed and the unstructured urban fabric it produced. These criticisms and the different policies drawn up to fight the phenomenon weren't, however, of much success. The outskirts of French towns have continued their haphazard development. Now, opinion is changing, city planning policies have abandoned fighting a losing battle and try to channel the phenomenon. Public transportation policies are one of the important aspects of this philosophy because private cars cannot answer commuter needs. Different studies done by the Lyon CETE for the Direction Regional de l'Equipement examine the role rail can play in the development of the outskirts of towns today. The first study concerns the valley between Lyon and St-Etienne. It sets a typology of the railway stations according to their urban functions and their role in public transport, and tests the effectiveness of this typology and estimates the actual potentiality of increasing density around railway stations. The results show the gap between the general proposition "increase density around railway stations" and its implementation. They help understand the difficulties, but also show what levers that can be used. The second one concerns two railway stations which are going to be restructured on the outskirts of Grenoble. In the first part of this paper, the two stations in the general organisation of the territory at urban area level are examined. The role each station plays in the urban area of Grenoble is analysed and a general organisation of the stations in the territory proposed. This means understanding which are the territorial stakes of the stations and which are the links with the global projects of the urban area? The second part of the study puts the 2 stations in their local context, and puts them in phase with other local projects. These two studies help to understand mobility, urban and country planning problematics, and see the coherence between the different planning processes. They give a template to improve the use of rail in low density outskirts of towns.