This week German Marshall Fund fellow Eric Eidlin is the host for two French High Speed Rail experts; Stephan de Fay, the Executive Director of Bordeaux Euratlantique, the public agency that is overseeing the redevelopment of Bordeaux’s main train station to accommodate several new high speed rail lines by 2020 and Etienne Tricaud, President and CEO of AREP, the French Railway’s architecture office.  Together they discuss the geography of France and its high speed rail network, the station areas as not just transportation projects but major urban projects, the experts and powers available to public agencies working on station area planning in France, the design of the station area versus that of the district as a whole, and finally the importance of having an overall vision for integrating transportation and land use in the station district.  Join us for part 1 of this interesting discussion.