FRANCE | Urban Transport Compilation

[Minato ku]

Here a thread for urban system outside Paris.

[Minato ku]

Marseille metro

19 km
2 lines
24 stations



Joliette M2








Saint Charles M1 M2

[Cosmin]

Hey, man! I was begining to wonder where you are. This looks like another intereting thread.

I see Marseille is using the same trains as Lyon.

[Minato ku]

I was in holiday, I have a life outside SCC.
In fact the design of the train is similar but it is not the same type of train.

Marseille metro is a mix between Paris and Lyon metro

Paris :
Manual door
Dirty
Lacks of information

Lyon :
Design of train and station.

Marseille metro opened in 1977, one year before Lyon metro but Lyon metro is definitively more modern.

[kub86]

I forgot where I found this picture, but I think lyon has the coolest looking light rail. When I visited, I never saw the silver ones though.

I liked how in Marseille they had 4-car trains. Lyon only has 2 or 3-cars.

Is Marseille a lot poorer than France? When I visited, every time I'd exit the subway station, there'd be a group of people begging for my subway ticket (nothing has happened like that to me in Paris or Lyon...)

[Songoten2554]

wow thats awesome a thread of metro and light rail systems outside of paris and France in general thats cool.

more pictures and videos and info about it please.

[Substructure]

kub86, yes, it's the poorest "big" city of France, and the one with the most social issues as well (immigration, unemployment..). It's recovering though, the unemployment rate has shrink from 20% to a more reasonable 14% the past ten years, though it can be as high as 40% in the north.
Immigration from poor countries has also been massive in this city, considering its location. I believe something like half of the city has an extra European origin.

I also find it terribly dirty, and some places in the north look like the third world. Beside, the downtown area and old port are nice places to visit.

You can find more facts about Marseille here if you want.

[Minato ku]

Originally Posted by kub86

I liked how in Marseille they had 4-car trains. Lyon only has 2 or 3-cars.

A weird thing when we know that Lyon metro is busier.
The worse is to know that the busiest metro line outside Paris (Lyon metro line D) has only two cars by train.

I think it is also due at the since, when it was planned in the 1970's Marseille city proper had 1 million inhabitants (Now the city has 800,000 inhabitants)

Is Marseille a lot poorer than France? When I visited, every time I'd exit the subway station, there'd be a group of people begging for my subway ticket (nothing has happened like that to me in Paris or Lyon...)

As I know Lille is as poor but don't have the same thing even when you go in Paris poorest district you don't see that.
I think it is due at southern mentality.

Anyway, Marseille is a wonderfull city

___________________________________________________

Some picture of Lyon Tram

[juanico]

Originally Posted by Substructure

[...]as high as 40% in the north.

[...] some places in the north look like the third world.[...]

By "north" I believe Substructure speaks about the northern districts of the city of Marseille, which count many rough estates. Don't know if it's the poorest part of the city though, some inner city areas look dirt poor as well.

Sorry for the off topic.

[juanico]

Line 1 of Marseille metro is currently getting lenghtened of 4 km, with 4 new stations due to open in 2009.

The city had the particularity to operate one of the last streetcar of France: line 68 ran from 1893 until 2004 (see picture below for its last ride in January 04).



2 new tram lines operate since 2007: line 1 runs moslty on line 68 former route which for this purpose have been upgraded to more modern light rail standards.

The network lengths 11 km as of August 2008, but 2 new stations will open this Fall.



LRVs are Bombardier's Flexity Outlook.

(both pictures by Fr. Latreille)

[Plumber73]

I recently returned from a two and a half week trip in France. A couple places I visited were Nantes and Rouen, which both had light rail. Any pics of these systems?

[JustinB]

It really ticks me off, that most other cities can build lovely systems, but Toronto has to go with ugly poles, and excessive wire installation.

[Plumber73]

Isn't there a Toronto thread for that? Did I curse this thread or something?

[Minato ku]

I don't have pics of Nantes and Rouen tram.
Instead of it I have picture of Grenoble tram, the older stock is the same as Rouen tram stock.

Grenoble is the second oldest system of the french LRT revival (After Nantes) and it is the fifth oldest tram system in France. (After St Etienne, Marseille, Lille and Nantes)

[Svartmetall]

Excellent summary of transit systems in France. I love the French trams. Though not as extensive as their German counterparts, the aesthetics make up for that fact!

[m@rco]

Originally Posted by Minato ku

I don't have pics of Nantes and Rouen tram.
Instead of it I have picture of Grenoble tram, the older stock is the same as Rouen tram stock.

Grenoble is the second oldest system of the french LRT rival (After Nantes) and it is the fifth oldest tram system in France. (After St Etienne, Marseille, Lille and Nantes)

These photos are very recent, are they yours ?

A map of the tram's network, eight cities are served:


More photos of Grenoble here:
http://snotag.free.fr/phototheque/#album=26

[Augusto]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

Excellent summary of transit systems in France. I love the French trams. Though not as extensive as their German counterparts, the aesthetics make up for that fact!

Unlike Germany France had scraped all tram networks between the late 30' and the late 50' excepted one inter-urban line in Lille, one busy line in Saint Etienne (both of them are narrow gauge) and one short line in Marseilles because it had a tunnel section that was too narrow to operate with buses. And in some cases the tram stocks were almost new when they were scraped (in Paris some of them were only 5 years old in 1937!) or very advanced like the Algiers tram (french city untill 1962).

[Svartmetall]

France did the same as Britain then.

Seems like most countries tore up their tram networks only to absolutely regret it later.

[city_thing]

Mistake of the century, and unfortunately made by countless cities.

Such a shame that everyone looked to the decentralised, Los Angeles style of city planning as the way of the future.

[Fricy]

Two short own videos from the VAL-system metro lines of Toulouse:

Toulouse, Ligne A

Toulouse, Ligne B