Why Paris Is Strangely Designed

this spaghetti-like jumble of lines is one of the largest public transit networks in the wild and it belongs to the City of Paris every day 9.4 million trips are taken on these signs and the surrounding region what's astonishing is how one of the world's oldest metropolises can build such a well-connected network while retaining a high frequency of service and this is just the beginning because it's about to grow massively I'm saving what that expansion entails for later in the video because we need to truly grasp what it looks like today first as there are and stay with me here 16 Metro lines five Regional Express Network lines eight Regional train lines and 12 tram lines not to mention a whopping 1500 bus lines throughout the region including 64 within Paris itself and 46 night buses this impressive Network serves a 12.4 million inhabitants of the ELD France region including over 2 million people living in the city of Paris itself but this impressive Network wasn't built overnight Paris has been added for over a century while London may have beat Paris to the underground Railway game by nearly 40 years the city quickly caught up see line one of the Paris Metro was opened in 1900 and by 1913 there were already 10 lines thanks to a simple construction technique called cut and cover the first line was built in just over two years but some parts of the city were tougher to dig in so the city resorted to building above ground four stations of line 2 and 13 stations of line 6 were therefore built on elevated platforms as new lines expanded across the city construction had to deal with new obstacles like Crossing beneath the scene river and another unexpected obstacle hiding beneath a huge part of the city but before I tell you what that is I'll give you a hint the stone facades on paris's iconic buildings now I'll give you some time to try and figure it out on your own so this is a perfect time to thank the sponsor of this video surfshark surfshark is a VPN and if you 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the stone facades on paris's iconic buildings see much of the city's architecture including Notre Dame features luteesian limestone a stone which is local to the Paris region it's been queried there since Roman times and in the 1500s they started querying on the ground the problem was that as the city expanded so did the quarries and in 1774 a 300 meter section of the city collapsed into the ground in response King Louis XVI the ruler of France at the time established the department of General query inspection to map the Labyrinth of underground caves and ensure they were structurally Sound by adding pillars and filling in cavities around the same time heavy rains caused bodies to re-emerge from overcrowded cemeteries across the city the series public health problems this caused drove City officials to relocate the contents of several cemeteries on the ground this became what is now known as the catacombs a popular if morbid tourist attraction it's the world's largest ossuary and contains an estimated 6 million remains Beyond just the catacombs abandoned tunnels still exist under a huge part of the city with 20 of Parisian buildings on top of a former Quarry what's interesting is that the general query inspection still exists and they continue to survey 280 kilometers of underground galleries adding structural support where necessary and updating the maps since 1955 this part of the underground queries is strictly forbidden to the public naturally The Forbidden nature of these tunnels has attracted Urban explorers and even the occasional rave party but in reality what you'll find in the tunnels is much less exciting a Labyrinth of cold damp and completely dark tunnels sometimes flooded with Mighty Border in 1793 a man named phillibad aspart got lost in the tunnels and died his body wasn't found for 11 years but even today the tunnels can be dangerous in 2017 a couple of teenagers were lost for three days until they were finally found by a team of Rescuers and promptly hospitalized for hypothermia as fun as it might seem with many barricaded acids and up to a 3 700 Euro fine it's probably a better idea to stick to the one and a half kilometers of catacombs open to the public but anyway when you consider the catacombs the existing Metro sewers water and gas lines and whatever else is hiding in the ground underneath Paris adding more lines to the Metro Network gets more and more complicated in the 1990s the Meteora project used tunnel borrowing machines to take 20 meters Under Paris deeper than the actual water table in 1998 this project became 914 the first fully automated metro line it's now the fastest line in the network with an average speed of 40 kilometers an hour carrying 35 000 passengers every hour but even as the city expanded its Metro Network the older lines weren't forgotten in 2012 the oldest in the network Line 1 was renovated becoming completely automated and while we're certainly not the First Youtube channel to talk about the Paris Metro I think we have a unique perspective thanks to my rider Charles who happens to live there what other videos may not mention is that experiencing the Metro as a tourist is a completely different experience from riding it on a regular basis Beyond dealing with the Daily Grind of packed Rush Hour trains the quality of your experience depends on which lines you take take line 11 for example which is still running trains from 1959. while these trains add to the Parisian charm for the tourists they're a real pain to deal with on a daily basis for the locals these all terrains are shaky and unreliable and to get the door open you have to forcefully pull a nasty metal knob touched by thousands of other people thankfully 911 is being expanded so it's due to get new trains in the near future and while it might seem a bit entitled to complain about all the trains the Paris Metro system has its fair share of real problems on January 1st 2023 the cost of the monthly navigo pass will increase by 12 percent to 84 euros and 10 cents which in the current economic context is hard to stomach for many operations even worse only four lines are now running at full capacity due to budget cut meaning fewer trains and more delays having to wait a few minutes for the next train might not sound that bad but when train after train is packed due to delays it can be exhausting see in 2021 impressively every metro line was in time more than 90 percent of the time during rush hour but by September 2022 this dipped below 90 for several lines reaching as low as 84 technical problems and Hazards on the tracks were among the courses for these delays but one reason sticks out more than the others lack of personnel out of 3 100 jobs available there is a lack of 100 drivers the not so shocking truth is that fewer and fewer people want to spend their day or sometimes nights working underground for little pay strikes by Metro workers brought the metro to a halt on November 10th leaving only the fully automated lines 1 and 14 in operation this understandably created a lot of chaos and since waikos weren't satisfied with the pay increase for 2022 more strikes are expected in January of 2023 but while there isn't enough money to increase employee pay somehow there's plenty of money for new construction line 14 was recently expanded 5.8 kilometers with four new stations and 35 brand new trains by 2024 another 14 kilometers will be added connecting the city to the only airport but what's impressive is what this will connect to over the next six years four new Metro lines will open outside of the city adding 68 stations to the network the project is called the Grand Paris Express and will add 200 kilometers of fully automated lines doubling the size of the Metro Network 75 of the new lines will be underground and trains will run at an average of 60 kilometers an hour nearly twice the current average this will add badly needed connections between suburbs giving new Transit options that don't require a trip through the city center now part of the Grand Paris Express were supposed to open in time to shuttle visitors to venues for the 2024 Olympics but after the pandemic and other construction delays the earliest opening dates for the project have been pushed to 2025. while this is certainly a bit embarrassing for the city the total cost of 35.6 billion euros or about 178 million per kilometer isn't too bad at least when you compare it to the ridiculous cost of New York's Second Avenue subway which is the most expensive in the world while that's admittedly an extreme example I think it highlights how France can complete massive public transit infrastructure projects for a reasonable amount of time and money while the US is completely incapable well that's perhaps a subject for a different video paris's transit system does share one downside with New York it's pretty dated having a Metro System first pulled over a century ago means that accessibility is difficult if not impossible for people who can't take the stairs that means the Paris transit map looks a lot different if you're in a wheelchair where most of the stations in the city center are inaccessible but beyond the downsides what's insane is that we've only looked at the Metro Network even after the 2030 extension of the metro to 400 plus kilometers of lines the rer or Regional Express network will still be much longer the five lines of regional Express trains cover over 600 kilometers of tracks at 249 stations since the rera was created in the 1970s the network has expanded to five lines today the rer A and B now the first and second most used Rail lines in Europe compared to the eight Regional trains the rer's run more frequently and passed through the city instead of ending in Paris and three of these lines converge in one station in the city center Saturday they all opened in December 1977. the station has become a confusing hellhole for both tourists and Provisions alike and if you're wondering why well it's really two Metro stations combined with an rer station making it literally the largest underground train station in the world they have divided the station into three sectors as if that makes it easier to change trains or find one of their 19 exits and anyway Sims 3 are lines and five measure lines passed through it you'll inevitably have to use the station if you're trying to get somewhere in Paris but your experience on the Aria trains themselves really depends on which line you take line B is definitely the worst with only 86.8 percent of trains running on time during rush hour in 2021. the local transport Authority is investing in repairs to make the lines more reliable but all of this is outshined by their next big projects expanding line e to the east this project will add an additional 55 kilometers of track and bring 620 000 New Riders to the network but aside from trains trams buses and metros Paris still has other ways to get around see the city has over a thousand kilometers of bike Lanes including 352 kilometers added during the lockdown so sure there is a pretty insane mess hiding underneath Paris but its public transit is something most cities would envy and I don't think I'm alone in saying that their structure is a bit strange range but it definitely works but let me know what you think that's it for this video thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 264,035

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Id: 3Ly4Hxb-WJ4

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2022