Yesterday night the BBC was announcing the start of a new 8km tram line in Paris. With green grass surrounding the trains, this seems like a great move towards making the city more environment friendly, but it is actually the latest in a move by the city to curb downtown traffic by making it a hell to drive around. All roads now include bus lanes or other tricks that reduced by half the number of lanes available for common drivers. The city seems to hope that by making driving the most frustrating experience ever, people will use alternative means of transportation.
What a terrible way to treat its own population!
Public transportation in Paris is very far from perfect when compared with cities like Hong Kong. The metro is dirty and plagued by strikes and delays. Buses are unsafe. Is the city really providing an equally convenient alternative to the car? Not really… It also fails to realize the importance of the car for French people in general. Driving a car in France is a statement of freedom and independence. A forced removal of this can only angry people more. It will not make them abandon their car.
So apart from increased traffic jams, Paris now also has way more motorcycles speeding between cars and leading to more crashes, as more and more less-experienced two-wheel drivers get on the road. Looking at solutions like London implementation of a toll fee could lead to better results. Unfortunately, a fee, as I was discussing with a French friend, is not an egalitarian solution as it will affect poorer people more… Isn’t France quest to be the most egalitarian country in the world affecting its own relevance to the world in the end?
[...] by psychobserver in Customer Experience, France. trackback Some time ago, I wrote a post about transportation in Paris, saying that the new measures taken to curb traffic were making drivers’ life a nightmare. [...]
Well Parisian do not think like you… they travel en masse via public transportation and the new tram line is a huge success (already more than 80000 travellers per day, while they were expecting only 50000). Here are some tranportation figures in Paris: http://desourcesure.com/dss/2007/08/la_rafle_du_velib.php
And stop thinking that the metro is always on strike. It is completely untrue. The latest big strike was around 2003 and it did not last very long (couple days). The big biggest one was in 1995 (3 weeks). What is the worst: lose long hours stuck in traffic everyday? Or ride the metro which is at least very reliable? Where on earth could you find trains coming every 95 seconds at peak hours? And buses are not unsafe! How did you get that?
I have dowloaded RATP annual report, it is very interesting. You should read it, it is available in English: http://www.ratp.fr/corpo/entreprise/rapport_activite.html
Dear Pascal,
Thank you very much for your comment and for the links you provided.
My post was it is true very strong in its tone, which is done on purpose to spur discussions. Since then as well, the Paris launched Velib, (I recently made a post on this) which to me is a really great initiative. I hope that in the end transportation in Paris will greatly improve to boost passenger’s comfort and to reduce the number of cars (according to the link you provided, the number of cars is decreasing already).
If I compare to Asian cities, you are right that Paris metro offers good infrastructure and frequency of trains. If I may I would still say that in terms of cleanliness the Paris Metro has a long way to go. For safety, I do not have figures, but just a feeling. Asia “feels” very safe, in that since I moved here seven years ago, I never felt unsafe, which is not the case in Paris depending on which district you go to.
Also, I am not sure all Parisians disagree with what I was saying, at least some people around me prefer other options to public transportation, by sticking to their cars or by buying a scooter. In the link you provided, we can see for example that the number of motorized two-wheel vehicles greatly increased since 2002.