On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 21:09:04 +0100, "Morton"
wrote:

Just come back from Paris for a couple of days and had my first metro
experience. A few comments:

1. The Metro trains are better than London Underground. All I saw were wider
(holding more people) and much cleaner. Some trains had a rather quaint
flick-switch opener to activate the door opening rather than all
automatically opening.

Depends on your definition of "better". The deep tube lines in London
are obviously more claustrophobic and cramped because of the tunnel
size. This is partly because we built the first such lines in the world.
Others learnt from our "errors" if you wish to call them that.

I agree some Tube Lines are not spotlessly clean but some are a lot
better than they used to be. I agree the newer Paris stock - such as on
lines 1 and 14 - are nice and bright. The older Paris stock is not much
different from our old stock.

2. Signs on the Metro are much inferior to the Underground. I've been in
London for 4 years now so perhaps am used to the Underground but I felt the
Metro's signage was really confusing and incomplete.

The famous London vs Paris signage debate. Well I can use both systems
perfectly well. The first time I used the Paris Metro I was horribly
confused but I cope with it now. Same with the New York and Tokyo
subways where service patterns and colours are very confusing until you
"tune in" to how it works.

The newer style of signs and publicity are far better than the older
stuff and RATP are making a big effort to improve this aspect of the
system. If you've used the LU system for years then you will find it
easy because you are familiar with it. The LU system isn't foolproof -
just look at the number of tourists and visitors standing in front of
signs looking lost.

3. Further to that, the Metro map was shown in different formats opposed to
the famous Harry Beck Tube map. Different maps confused the hell out of me.

I prefer the RATP map that is closest to the Beck design for a pocket
map but I have to say that the "imposed on a street map" design is very
useful given that so many Paris Metro stations are close to each other.
It is genuinely useful to know that you can walk a few hundred metres in
the other direction to get to a more useful line rather than make an
interchange trip that would take far longer - especially with the
distance between lines in some Parisian stations.

4. I did like the cross-city trains (RER) in Paris. Double-decker trains
were impressive. I do hope that cross-rail does this.

Well they're OK in terms of crowd busting but I visit friends out in the
suburbs and often have to travel at night and I find them a less
attractive option then. Apart from the newest stock they are badly
vandalized and usually have half of the carriages in a four car set
closed with the lights off. That, for me, is a bit unnerving as it
simply says there are undesirable people using the system and that
security is not all it could be.

5. Surprisingly the Underground is cleaner and brighter than the Metro.
While Paris is spotless compared to London, I thought the Metro was drab,
uninspiring and could do with a good clean.

To be fair to RATP they spent the big money on making the trains
reliable with good signalling and control systems first. This is why the
system runs so well. They are now spending a lot of money on station
refurbs but many of the designs are very standardized and lacking in the
character of the older, more varied stations. There was been a big push
on cleanliness in London and that will continue as our stations get
upgraded too. Paris still has a level of smoking in their stations - the
ban is famously ignored by the populace. That doesn't help on the
cleanliness front.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!