What the SkyTrain and subway lobbies fail to mention, is that Paris transit authorities are also investing heavily in light rail or tramways. Something that planners should consider, when planning for new transit lines in Vancouver.
Paris inaugurates tram Line T7
FRANCE: The latest tram line in Paris opened on November 16 with two days of free travel. Line T7 runs from Villejuif-Louis Aragon, the southern terminus of metro Line 7, to Athis-Mons with 18 stops and a depot at Vitry-sur-Seine. The end-to-end journey time on the 11Ai??2Ai??km line is 30 min.
In addition to metro Line 7, interchange is provided with the Orlyval peoplemover serving Orly Airport. Interchange will also be provided with several planned lines: RER Line C, lines 15 and 18 of the Grand Paris Express programme and the planned extension of Line 14 to Orly.
Peak frequency is currently 6Ai??min, which is planned to increase to 4Ai??min once an extension to Juvisy-sur-Orge opens in 2018. Ridership is expected to be 30Ai??000 passengers per day.
The line is operated with a fleet of 19 Alstom Citadis trams, including the 1Ai??500th Citadis delivered by Alstom. Each 32Ai??m long tram has a capacity of 200 passengers. Ile-de-France transport authority STIF ordered the vehicles in February 2011 together with 20 trams for Line T8, which will link Saint-Denis with Epinay-sur-Seine and Villetaneuse. The order includes an option for a further 31 cars.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/paris-inaugurates-tram-line-t7.html
What the LRT lobby fails to mention is that Paris is investing billions in an automated metro very similar to SkyTrain. Plus, they already have one if the largest metro systems in the world.
Zweisystem replies: NOT SIMILAR TO SKYTRAIN. The SkyTrain lobby completely fails to understand that automatic train control has been around for over a half of a century (The Victoria Line is the first metro to be regarded as fully automated) and is a form of railway signalling. ATC is cost effective on only the most heavily used metro lines and is not cost effective on small mini-metro lines like Skytrain. Paris has an urban population of over 12.1 million has the population that can support a large metro system that can afford automatic operation.
Let’s see, Metro Vancouver’s population of just over and a metro population of 2.3 million just can’t support a large automatic metro network.
The problem is simple, the SkyTrain Lobby doesn’t recognize ATC as a signalling issue, rather they treat it as a SkyTrain/driver issue, which is strange because those automatic Paris metros will have driver/attendants on board and the real cost savings will come from the signalling departments. But then, when did facts ever hinder the SkyTrain Lobby.
Actually, the reason they are doing LRT is because only a small part of the Paris Region is served by the metro and the Regional RER system and to extend metro and other heavier capacity systems from the central city outwards was going to be too expensive. The outer areas are going to be served by commuter rail and LRT. There is also a massive expansion of bus lanes and improved bus line systems. They are correct however and do not call this Bus Rapid Transit like certain groups do every time you even remotely improve a bus route. The French correctly know that true BRT involves what is known as a quicklyway (private r.o.w. designed for buses and by pass lanes with bus networking in mind from the design onwards), some form of all door boarding/e payment or prepayment and real BRT Network planning not just corridor by corridor system development. They also have a policy with there transit lane program, that, if a road is limited to 4 lanes, cars and truck can only occupy 2 of those lanes and transit lanes/bicycles lanes the rest. Keeping in mind that they cannot go broke while doing all of this.
By the way, the Paris Region has a population of over 20 million and occupies a lot more territory than the map in the article let’s you see. They knew that they could never put heavy rail systems to more than a handful of areas outside of the city of Paris. Even commuter rail was limited because they needed far more of the area rail network to carry freight to lighten the load on the regional highway system, which is bursting at the seams. LRT was the only rail answer that was affordable and where that wouldn’t work they plan to greatly upgrade the bus system.
@Richard, LRT lobby?
Walking up to the tram pictured at street level in a friendly neighbourhood is infinitely more appealing than climbing or descending stairs at an intimidating sky train station to brush past zapped out junkies with needles sticking out of their arms. Being harassed by the many cretins hanging around the sky train stations isn’t charming,either, in my opinion.
Sky train has resulted in the following:
1) Increased crime concentrated at sky train stations in Metro Vancouver
2) Additional $500 million/year in operating costs for transit
3) No reduction in the number of drivers on the roads
4) Worst road congestion in North America
5) Greatly increased carbon emissions and toxic emissions from transit
6) Degradation of air quality and increased transit noise from the FTN diesel buses supporting sky train
7) Gas taxes, electricity taxes, property taxes… parking taxes to pay for transit – over $500/year per taxpayer
Did I miss something?
Thank you for your update. My contacts in France have moved and/or retired. I do know that French regulations (EEC?) mandate a driver/attendant on automated trains in case of emergency.
Thank you for your update. My contacts in France have moved and/or retired. I do know that French regulations (EEC?) mandate a driver/attendant on automated trains in case of emergency.