[HN Gopher] The new Paris metro ___________________________________________________________________ The new Paris metro Author : TheIronYuppie Score : 119 points Date : 2023-11-25 05:45 UTC (17 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.forbes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com) | johncoltrane wrote: | The exhibition mentioned in the article [1] is well worth a | visit. | | [1] https://www.societedugrandparis.fr/fabrique-du-metro | ggm wrote: | I mainly know the older, shallow line inner city routes. I've | used the existing ?SNCF? Hookups to Orly, CDG and the Thalys | North into Amsterdam, it works well. Paris was always an exemplar | for modernisation in a time where the O.G. London underground was | a bit moribund (rubber wheels) but retention of the carnet system | beyond its life and a surge in London transport investment rather | upended things. | | This is a huge expansion. Being brave enough to build rings is | great: most capital cities obsess with spokes to existing hubs, | or like the Elizabeth line do a single slash across. | | New York should read and weep. | thriftwy wrote: | Weird that it does not have the route map of the expansions - | see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express | | Speaking about rings, Moscow metro now has three of these. | mananaysiempre wrote: | Moscow's situation is funny in part because a number of | diagonal slashes is closer to what the city needs (the | central parts are probably an order of magnitude over design | capacity during rush hour and essentially never under it), | but the plan for those got turned into a ring because | apparently the infrastructure to turn trains around at the | ends was too difficult to build. | | The other new ring is a fairly old preexisting train line | that used to be cargo-only; it had the potential to be great, | but unfortunately the ridiculously long connection times have | made the real thing somewhat niche--if both your origin and | your destination aren't on it, the ten to fifteen minutes' | walk will likely make the result worse than just going | through the center. And two connections are just never worth | it. | | (There's a whole story behind how building stupid useless | connections came to be viewed as a virtue in Moscow transport | planning--look up "Vykhino effect". Doesn't make the result | any less shit, though.) | thriftwy wrote: | I guess you've not experienced the Metro (and Vykhino | effect) around 2003 if you think it is over capacity _now_. | It is a cakewalk now. | | I, too, dislike the new connections, and the lack thereof, | but the speed with which the new lines sprung up is a | marvel. | unflxw wrote: | Aren't the diagonals also being built? Primarily, if I | recall correctly, by reusing existing passenger rails | corridors and connecting their services instead of | terminating them at the main stations. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Central_Diameters | xkekjrktllss wrote: | > _New York should read and weep_ | | an understatement | colordrops wrote: | LA should read and jump off a bridge | jseliger wrote: | L.A. has actually been much better than NYC at building new | transit infrastructure over the last 40 years: | https://archive.ph/sbTkC. NYC, though, is obviously | starting from a much higher base. L.A. should also be | working harder to build more faster, but it's not the | laughing stock it once was. | rob74 wrote: | The rubber wheel metros are mostly a result of lobbying by | Michelin. They're an interesting curiosity, but I think there | is a reason why they haven't really caught on outside of | France... | uxp8u61q wrote: | They cost more to maintain, but they allow greater | acceleration and deceleration and produce less | noise/vibration than metal wheels. | | And Michelin must have a phenomenal lobbying team if they | managed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber- | tyred_metro#List_of_sys... (In particular, "didn't catch on | outside France" is, well, just plain wrong.) | seanmcdirmid wrote: | One (or more?) of Paris metro lines is rubber wheel, the one | up to la defense, rubber is simply better at climbing hills. | The ouchy line in Lausanne is also rubber for the same reason | (since it climbs from lake geneva up and up). | | Unless you go with a rack railroad, or maybe a cable way, you | are only climbing hills with rubber. | creer wrote: | Most use rubber wheels | seanmcdirmid wrote: | According to wiki, just Lines 1, 4, 6, 11, and 14. So | that leaves at least 9 that don't (assuming continuous | numbering). | creer wrote: | So they say indeed! Interesting! I have lived there long | enough and didn't notice. They are all pretty quiet. To | be fair, it's possible to run on rubber and still mess it | up, noise-wise, like BART does with gusto. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | According to wiki, the only light rail running on rubber | is the airport's AirTrain. No mention of BART running on | rubber at all, nor on its own wiki page. | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber- | tyred_metro#List_of_s... | warrenmiller wrote: | the Taipei Metro Brown Line runs on rubber wheels too | agazso wrote: | Mexico city too has rubber wheels on some lines | speed_spread wrote: | Montreal metro uses rubber wheels. It's the smoothest train | ride you'll get in all of North America. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Rings kind of suck. You have to go around to get anywhere, and | so you spend a lot more time on your subway getting home. | hamilyon2 wrote: | I was quite surprised to know there will be new major line and | apparently minor hub station very near from where I live. | op00to wrote: | Sweet! When do you think it will be ready by you? | rayiner wrote: | It's sad to realize that such a project would be completely | impossible in America now. We've become the Microsoft of | countries. | colordrops wrote: | Due to the cost of foreign policy and lobbying, both by | domestic corporations and foreign nations. | rayiner wrote: | Our foreign policy experiments are a relatively small | percentage of our GDP. It's not like the money isn't there | for these projects. Even with the foreign wars, the US still | spends significantly less of GDP on public services than | other developed countries. | candiddevmike wrote: | Think of how much rail Afghanistan and Iraq could've bought | us. Amtrak gets something like 4 billion/year, think of what | 2 trillion could've done... | contingencies wrote: | Great analogy. Haven't seen a successful acquisition, only lots | of failed ones. | taude wrote: | github failed, how? | tptacek wrote: | Microsoft is one of the most successful corporations in the | world, and is widely considered to be undergoing a sort of | renaissance under Nadella, so while the intent of this put-down | is clear, its expression is pretty clumsy. | | Couldn't you just say or link to something concrete to make | your point instead? The cost problems of large American | projects are incredibly well covered in the media; you're a | trivial Google search away from lots of great material here. | felipelemos wrote: | Successful to the shareholders, not the users. | kevincox wrote: | Microsoft's goal is to make the shareholders money. So that | it success to it. | pkulak wrote: | And success or not has nothing to do with OP's point. | kortilla wrote: | That's what makes a successful company though. | pjerem wrote: | Well, by that reasoning, US are a successful country. | | But when you are not the shareholder but the user / | citizen, you have the right to decide what "successful" | means to you. | rat9988 wrote: | Citizens should be shareholders, but let's not stretch | the analogy. | hollerith wrote: | The US is a successful country; try to invade us and see | :) Or try to outspend us :) | rayiner wrote: | It's been unsuccessful at building high-quality, user-facing | products. Which is where I was going with the analogy. The US | makes plenty of money too, but falls short in building things | you can point to. | jnwatson wrote: | 68 new stations in the Paris area and it took forty years to get | a Metro stop at DC's biggest airport. | quasse wrote: | Meanwhile Seattle is planning to maybe-kinda-sorta begrudgingly | start building one single light rail line to the west side of | the city in the next few decades. Maybe it'll be ready by the | time I retire. | wombat-man wrote: | As someone who visits Seattle regularly it is painful seeing | this roll out gradually. | Rebelgecko wrote: | Until a few years ago there were some dumb limitations for | federal infrastructure funding that connected trains to | airports | ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote: | Or we still haven't, depending on how you decide which is the | biggest airport. BWI had slightly more passengers than Dulles | last year; Dulles had slightly more flights than BWI. | alistairSH wrote: | BWI doesn't have subway, but it does have light rail service | to Baltimore and Amtrak service to DC. | cpursley wrote: | Just wait till you read how many (stunning) stations and lines | of track in highly sanctioned (and supposedly beyond corrupt) | Russia has laid in Moscow, it's depressing. If they can do it | on time and under budget, why can't America? | selectodude wrote: | Pretty sure a decent amount of the Moscow metro was built | with convict labor under Stalin. | twelve40 wrote: | Pretty sure the OP is referring to the more relevant fact | that in the last decade they've built over 100 new stations | and continue to do so at a rate of about 12 new stations | every year, no slave labor involved. | csomar wrote: | Stalin labor is able to travel in time? | gwervc wrote: | The airport line from and to the city (RER B) is literally the | worst I ever took anywhere in the world. Two issues: there's no | room or equipment at people's height for luggages which is | infuriating. And it's shared with the local people going to and | from the North suburbs, making it very crowded at times. I | don't understand why there isn't a dedicated line, or at least | a dedicated express train going on the line. | uxp8u61q wrote: | If the RER B is "literally the worst [you] ever took anywhere | in the world", then you mustn't have taken public | transportation to the airport in many places. At least the | RER B... exists! There are so many places where the airport | can only be reached via car or taxi, it's insane. Many other | places have just a bus. Usually a terrible bus. | jimmywetnips wrote: | Exactly. I was going to say the same exact thing. | | Anyone else ever experienced the public transportless | hellscape of Cancun airport? Where a short ride into the | city is a cool 75 usd, rideshare is chased off by the | cartels, and the walk to the highway to take a collectivo | bus with incomprehensible route numbers is 1.5 miles away | in sweltering jungle heat? | | Or how about Tampa, Asheville, Austin or any other medium | sized us airport, where train transport doesn't exist at | all | | How about Boston Logan which is only connected to the main | Metro lines by a crappy bus that will add a nice 30 minutes | and luggage heaving to your journey | | I literally love the rer. It can be much shittier lol | wkat4242 wrote: | And those suburbs are not populated with the nicest people, | it didn't really feel very safe either. | se0 wrote: | Another project is the CDG Express : | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDG_Express | seszett wrote: | > _I don 't understand why there isn't a dedicated line_ | | Obviously, because it would take away capacity for the | regular users? | | It's among the most heavily used lines _in the world_ and | tourists are probably a single digit percent of users, or | less, so whatever funds available are better used to increase | global capacity than to provide a better experience for a few | people taking the plane. | _Wintermute wrote: | The number of times I witnessed tourist's suitcases being | swiped from the RER B as the doors were closing was just | depressing. | bambax wrote: | > _five years after then-President Nicholas Sarkozy_... | | "Nicolas". | lol768 wrote: | This is a cool infrastructure project, but they really need to | sort out ticketing.. Everyone else has adopted contactless EMV | with capping, but in Paris they're only introducing the | equivalent to London's Oyster (which frankly is a legacy | ticketing system in itself and was introduced back in June 2003; | over _twenty years ago_ ) now in the form of Navigo Easy for | tourists. When I last visited, the t+ tickets were paper | magstripe tickets that I could only buy using a terminal which | required chip+pin and didn't have a proper touch screen but some | weird roller you had to use.. | paganel wrote: | Those paper tickets are great for anonymity. In most of the | cases those contactless thingies give your identity away each | time you use them. | seabass-labrax wrote: | Paper tickets might be good for anonymity, but that can't be | guaranteed. I haven't used the ones for Paris, but many have | a unique code printed on the ticket that could be linked with | the bank that you used to purchase it through. One would need | to buy the ticket with cash to guarantee anonymity, and that | itself only with the assumption that 'out-of-band' | information isn't obtained (for example, from surveillance | cameras or unique identifiers on the cash). | | It is possible to have fully digital ticketing with complete | anonymity (again, assuming no external surveillance) using | zero-knowledge proofs. As far as I'm aware, no such systems | have been implemented for ticketing yet, but rapid progress | is being made in implementing these for general-purpose | digital identity situations. | | There's also the much more pedestrian^ option, used for | instance in Brussels, where the transport company simply | promises not to track individuals even when it would be | possible for them to do just that. That said, in Brussels I | personally got the impression that a large proportion of | passengers did not present tickets when entering a bus or | tram, and indeed the Brussels Metro trains don't require that | anyway. Thus tracking of individuals' movements would be | quickly thwarted by apathy on the part of passengers! | | ^: not the _most_ pedestrian option, naturally. | gwervc wrote: | > that I could only buy using a terminal which required | chip+pin | | Some machine have contactless payment support, it's indicated | on them. Sure it would be better to have more but the option | exists at last, and I guess more equipment will be upgraded in | the future. If anything this is the smallest issue with the | subway and the capital in general. | glandium wrote: | Navigo has had an anonymous version for at least 15 years. | Navigo itself is older than Oyster. | lol768 wrote: | And how long have you been able to load daily tickets? | uxp8u61q wrote: | So what, this is about your grievance that stopped being | relevant back in 2019? | lol768 wrote: | My point is that the entire offering has lagged behind | what I'd expect in terms of ticketing from such a major | European city. TfL don't even do a particularly good job | at what they do, but they at least get some of the basics | right. | | Maybe Paris will support iPhones properly and get | contactless working in 2030, at this rate? | gryn wrote: | T+ ticket are officially phased out right now, but for some | reason still work. You can install their app to buy and use | electronic tickets or a temporary card where you can store | electronic ticket. | uxp8u61q wrote: | The app is incompatible with tons of phones. I have a pixel | 4a, hardly an obscure or ancient phone, and for some reason | it's not compatible with the app. | jakub_g wrote: | Yup this is really bizarre. No iOS support at all, and | Google Pixels only from Pixel 5. (for storing the tickets | on the device). | progval wrote: | And they block rooted phones | lol768 wrote: | > You can install their app to buy and use electronic tickets | | Does this work on iPhone now? | jeromenerf wrote: | Early 2024 :/ | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | You can use an iPhone to reload a Navigo card, but you | cannot use it by itself. | stouset wrote: | Was that recent? I was in Paris in August and I still had to | buy paper t+ tickets to ride the metro. It felt very | outdated. | | I live in SF and travel regularly to NYC and both of those | just let me tap my phone and go. It honestly felt weird for | the US to be ahead of a major European city in this way. | pjerem wrote: | It depends on the station. Some stopped to sell tickets and | just sell refillable cards. | | But you can use cards, ticket, or phone in any station. | | The only thing you can't use, which, in 2023 is pretty | stupid, are payments cards (so neither Apple Pay and Google | Pay). They even had a long fight with Apple for years to | get full access to the NFC API instead of going with just | payment cards. | | Ironically, there are a lot of other cities in France that | are compatible with payment cards, but not Paris. | | I can imagine that it's not the same scale to upgrade Paris | ticketing vs the smaller cities but since they've done a | major overhaul anyway ... | xkekjrktllss wrote: | The NYC metro pass system has all of those exact same issues. I | find it frankly absurd to be nitpicking such details in the | face of such an accomplishment. | lol768 wrote: | > The NYC metro pass system has all of those exact same | issues | | I wouldn't expect anything else from an American attempt at a | public transport (sorry, "public transit") system, | unfortunately. Sadly it seems like a very car-centric culture | has taken hold in the states which has stifled investment and | innovation when it comes to public transport. | | OMNY will eventually fix things using tech 'borrowed' from | Oyster when it's fully rolled out (which must be soon), but | until then it seems like a poor system. | | > I find it frankly absurd to be nitpicking such details in | the face of such an accomplishment. | | The whole customer proposition is important; not just the | infrastructure. I am sure the Elizabeth Line in London | wouldn't have seen the adoption it has (well in excess of | predictions) without an easy-to-use fares system. | milkshakes wrote: | what? omni is everywhere and it works great. transfers, | weekly caps (slightly less benefits than a weekly pass but | still). what is your issue with nyc subway exactly? | wombat-man wrote: | NYC now accepts tap cards and apple pay if you want to avoid | the metro card. It also stops charging you after your 12th | ride of the calendar week | wenc wrote: | Not sure what you mean. OMNY has contactless and fare | capping. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMNY | | I use Apple Express Transit on my Apple Watch with the NY | MTA. I just tap my wrist and the turnstile unlocks. | | Also it caps at $34 in a 7 day period. | | https://new.mta.info/fares/omny-fare-capping | maeln wrote: | You can use your phone with nfc now. | jonathantf2 wrote: | We went for a week in February and couldn't find a single place | that had the Navigo Easy cards in stock - the paper tickets | were awful and wouldn't work straight out of the vending | machine, ended up wasting a lot of money. | BrandoElFollito wrote: | They also need to simplify the tickets structure. It is great | from obvious which ticket to buy when you are outside of Paris. | | And when I write "they", it is from the perspective of a native | of Versailles who still has to think hard when looking at the | web site in his own language. I cannot imagine for a tourist. | | Maybe this has improved (I hope so) but everytime someone | visited, I had to do a new PhD in ticketology. | op00to wrote: | Jealous. There were great "interurban" lines (sort of like light | rail of today) all up and down the US East Coast and beyond. At | one point you could ride these little local trains on a journey | from Philadelphia to New York! Talk about a connected metropolis! | thriftwy wrote: | At one point (for quite long actually) you could ride local | trains to go from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. It would take | a month, though. | hairy_callous wrote: | You can still easily do this to get from Philly to NYC. Septa | to Trenton, get off and switch to NJT to Penn Station. Runs | hourly and costs ~$1. It does take a bit longer than Amtrak, | though + Amtrak can be purchased for ~$20 if you time it right | hackandthink wrote: | A nice map: | | https://web.archive.org/web/20180806025050/https://media-med... | notpushkin wrote: | Looks like Constantine Konovalov has some work to do now: | https://metromap.fr/en | Qiu_Zhanxuan wrote: | I live in Paris. Just got a 200EUR fine coming back from a | running session. Beware, RATP rule enforcers are now dressed as | civilians and targets gullible individuals who breaks stupid | rules, (mistook my pass with my credit card when i tried to | check-in : 50EUR for forgetting my pass, and 150EUR for entering | an quasi-empty bus by the middle door). I see why RATP resorted | to racketeering after all this over-budget fiasco. Hope it's | worth it. | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | You didn't have your Navigo with you, but you blame them for | fining you? | moritzwarhier wrote: | As a German, living in a car-centric city with egregious and | never-finished public transport projects in rich districts, but | no functioning _public transport_ , this makes me envious. And it | seems very well-thought out, focusing on connecting suburbs. | | Please, let this project finish successfully and inspire others | to quit the madness of resource waste that is car scapes. | 3475235656 wrote: | This article reminds us what Europe was just 20 years ago. | Ambitious infrastructure and artistic projects. Fast forward to | 2023, decline and collapse trends have taken over. | hasoleju wrote: | Train connections are a wonderful thing. They really shrink the | space between two locations like no other transportation type. | Just hop in, read a book or newspaper and suddenly you are | somewhere else. | | For me it's a one hour car ride to the next major city (in | southern Germany). With the train it takes 25 minutes. | rayiner wrote: | In the US, train rides typically take anywhere from 1.5x-3x as | long as driving. | rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: | What a backward country. | thatfrenchguy wrote: | I mean, that's what happens on lines that haven't been | upgraded since the late 19th century. | tomcam wrote: | They added 120 miles of track and 68 stations in seven years. New | York City couldn't update a turnstile in seven years. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-25 23:00 UTC)