Transport in Paris

Paris is served by two principal airports: Orly Airport, which is south of Paris, and the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in nearby Roissy-en-France, one of the busiest in Europe. A third and much smaller airport, at the town of Beauvais, 70 km (45 mi) to the north of the city, is used by charter and low-cost airlines. Le Bourget airport nowadays only hosts business jets, air trade shows and the aerospace museum.

Paris is a central hub of the national rail network of high-speed (TGV) and normal (Corail) trains, which interconnects with a high-speed regional network, the RER. Six major railway stations, Gare du Nord, Gare Montparnasse, Gare de l’Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d’Austerlitz, and Gare Saint-Lazare connect this train network to the world famous and highly efficient underground metro system, the Metro network, with 380 stations (more than the London Underground) connected by 221.6km of rails.

There are two tangential tramway lines in the suburbs: Line T1 runs from Saint-Denis to Noisy-le-Sec, line T2 runs from La Defense to Issy. A third line along the southern inner orbital road is currently under construction.

The public transportation networks of the Paris region are coordinated by the Syndicat des transports d’Ile-de-France[10] (STIF), formerly Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP). Members of the syndicate include the RATP, which operates the Parisian and some suburban busses, the Metro, and sections of the RER; the SNCF, which operates the rest of the RER and the suburban train lines; and other operators.

The city is also the hub of France’s motorway network, and is surrounded by an orbital road, the Peripherique, which roughly follows the path of 19th-century fortifications around Paris. On/off ramps of the Peripherique are called ‘Portes’, as they correspond to the former city gates in these fortifications. Most of these ‘Portes’ have parking areas and a metro station, where non-residents can leave cars. Traffic in Paris is notoriously heavy, slow and tiresome.

Streets and Thoroughfares

Paris is well-known for the non-uniformity of its map. This seemingly haphazard arrangement of streets, alleys, squares, boulevards, and avenues is a result of a superimposition of one street plan upon an earlier other.

As with the birth of most agglomerations, a first network of streets was formed by the built-up areas around paths, roadways and places of trade, and a second formed when land surrounding these was divided and sold for building - in the French tradition, a plot of land was usually divided in a series of long and narrow parallel plots extending to both sides of a central lateral strip reserved for a passage across it. Very rarely was a street planned in advance.

A few exceptions aside, Paris’ growth remained true to this schema (for over eight hundred years!) until the mid-19th century city renovations by the Baron Haussmann laid waste to entire quarters to make way for a network of new Boulevards and Avenues that make much of Paris today. Many of the city’s winding and narrow streets still remain, but one must search through the quarters behind the Avenues to find them.

The 1970’s City-limit-hugging circular Peripherique expressway was the first real change since the above, as were narrow “expressways” along the quays of the Seine river and a few inner-city underground passages. It is not the map of the streets that is changing most these days, but the streets themselves: A recent movement towards prioritising Public Transportation systems and eliminating “through-city” traffic has created barricaded bus/taxi/cyclist alleys, narrowing the passages reserved for automobiles and delivery vehicles. Although lightening circulation within the city itself, this tendency is a source of heavy congestion to the Capital’s gateway thoroughfares.

Public Transportation

The horse-drawn “Omnibus” became Paris’ first form of public transportation from 1828. The horse-drawn tramway was next to appear from 1871; as for motorised transport, steam-driven trams appeared from 1880 before being replaced by the electric tramway from 1888. The first attempt at local rail transportation appeared when the “Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture” was open to passengers from 1875, but was outmoded in favour of the metro (the first porte de Vincennes-porte de Maillot line) appearing from the 19th of July 1900. From 1905 the tramway began to disappear in favour of the motor-driven bus, but the “tram” has begun very recently to make a re-apparition around Paris. For a more complete history of Paris’ various forms of public transport, please see Paris Public Transport.

Just to note - the Metro and Tramway, most of the Bus and a few sections of the RER are run by the RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), the government-subsidised company whose jurisdiction covers all transport touching the Parisian Capital. The rest of the RER, as well as the Transilien, are run by the SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français), the state-owned train company whose rail network covers all of France.

Metro

One hundred years after the creation of its first line, today’s Paris metro has 14 lines (not including two shorter “navette” lines and the Montmartre funicular), and 12 of these penetrate well into the surrounding suburbs (as two, lines 2 and 6, form a circle within Paris). Most lines cross the city diametrically and only the above-mentioned inner-city circular lines serve as a unique lateral interconnection.

RER

The RER (reseau express regional) is a large-calibre metro that runs far into the suburbs of Paris, with fewer stops within the city itself. From its first line A in 1977 it has grown into a network of five lines, A, B, C, D and E: three (A, B, and D) pass through Paris’ largest and most central Châtelet-Les-Halles metro station. Line C occupies the path of former railways along the Seine’s Rive Gauche quays, and the most recently-built line E leaves Paris’ gare Saint-Lazare train station for destinations to Paris’ north-east.

Transilien

These are suburban train lines connecting Paris’ main stations to the suburbs not reached by the RER. The “Transilien” lines are named as a play-on-words for the “transit” of “Franciliens,” inhabitants of the “Ile-de-France” region of which Paris is the capital.

Tram

Paris’ last tramway stopped running in 1937, but it is a mode of transport that has begun to return to the Parisian scenery in recent years. Begun from 1992, there exist two lines (the “T1″ and “T2″) running parallel to the outside limits of the capital. Begun in 2003, and destined for completion in late 2006, a new tram line (the “T3″) will run along a grassy alley running along most of Paris’ Left Bank rim.

Bus

Paris’ Bus lines are its most developed form of transport, interconnecting all points of the capital and its closest suburban cities. There are a total of 58 bus lines operating in Paris that have a terminus within city limits.

The capital’s bus system has been given a major boost over the past decade. Beginning in early 2000, Paris’ major arteries have been thinned to reserve an “express” lane reserved only for bus and taxi, and more recently, these normally sign-and-marking-designated lanes have been isolated from the rest of regular circulation through low concrete barriers that form “couloirs” and prevent all other forms of Paris circulation from even “temporarily” entering them.

National and International Rail Connections

Paris’ first “embarcadere” train station, the predecessor to the gare Saint-Lazare, appeared from 1837 as a home for the “novelty” Paris-a-Saint-Germain local line. Over the next ten years France’s developing rail network would give Paris five (including the Saint-Lazare station) national railway stations and two suburban lines, and from 1848 Paris would become the designated centre of an “Etoile” (star) spider-web of rail with reaches to (and through) all of France’s borders. This pattern is still very visible in France’s modern railway map.

As far as national and European destinations are concerned, rail transport is beginning to outdistance air travel in both travel time and efficiency. The still-developing SNCF’s TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) network, since its birth in 1981, brings France’s most southerly Marseille only 3 hours from the capital. A train similar to the TGV, the Eurostar, has been connecting Paris to central London through 2h 35 of rail since 1994, and in the opposite direction, the Thalys line connects Brussels through 1h40 of rail.

National and International Air Connections

Paris’ had its first “airport” in the fields of Issy-les-Moulineaux (just to the southern limits of Paris by its Seine river’s Left Bank) from the first aviation trials of 1908. Aviation became a serious mode of transport during the course of the first world war, which in 1915 led to the installation of a larger and more permanent runway installation near the town of Le Bourget to the north of Paris. A yet larger airport to the south of the Capital, Orly International Airport, began welcoming flights from 1945, and yet another airport to the north of the City, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, opened its gates from 1974.

Today the former airfields of Issy-les-Moulineaux have become a Heliport annex of Paris, and Le Bourget an airfield reserved for smaller aircraft. Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle takes the majority of international flights to and from Paris, and Orly is a host to mostly domestic and European airline companies.