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It's been mostly North American stuff so far but let me throw some Euro stuff in here. I grew up in a rural village in Michigan which obviously had no public transportation and the nearest system (about 30 miles away) exists pretty much entirely to service college students. This is a town of 30k people with an additional 25k-30k students during the academic year. There are also shuttle buses that work like big taxis, you call 24 hours in advance to schedule pickup and dropoff and the bus designs its route based on who it has to get for the day. Obviously the bus can't always come at the time you want it so be prepared to wait. I knew a guy who used it to come to work since he couldn't afford a car and he'd sometimes have to show up two hours early for work or stay a couple of hours late.  About six years ago I moved to Rennes, France which is about 2.5 hours west of Paris by train, although more on that train later. The population of the city is about 210,000 and the metropolitan area is around 420,000. The transit system serves Rennes Métropole, an intergovernmental organism designed to facilitate cooperation among communities. Here's a map. The map isn't 100% correct as a couple of years ago one of the towns neighboring Le Verger gave up some empty land in order to connect Le Verger with the rest of the Métropole.  All of these communities receive some degree of bus service, the network is pretty extensive. If you click on "lignes metropolitaines" in this link you'll get a map of the metropolitan lines which have less service and "lignes urbains" the "core" lines with better service. http://www.star.fr/se-deplacer/fich...f3648a0669dd4ff This, however, is my favorite part of the city's transport system.  The Rennes metro began service in 2002 and in 2012 had 135,000 daily riders. The line is 9.4km (5.8 miles) and takes about 15 mins to go from one end to the other. The Gares station, for those who don't remember their high school French, is the city's central train station. It uses automated VAL 208 cars which are monitored from the central facility.  It has doors isolating the platform from the tunnel. There's also no real gap to mind which is nice for people in wheelchairs.  Last year the city began construction of a second line that's scheduled to begin service in late 2019 traversing the city from southwest to northeast.  Cesson-Sévigné to the east is a largely white middle class suburb and many residents see the new metro line as the last step before they're inevitably annexed to Rennes proper. Now for the politically controversial stuff: There's already a great deal of discussion as to where to go next once the B line is completed. There are proposals to extend the A line down to Chantepie and up to Saint Grégoire or perhaps all the way out to Pacé. It's not clear from this map but between the beltway and Pacé it's mostly farmland. Leftists in the city council oppose this because they want to confine Rennes' horizontal growth to the inside of the beltway and focus on greater density rather than sprawl. They also point out the relatively undeveloped areas in the eastern part of the intra-beltway area as better candidates for growth. Some centrists and the few conservatives want to create a new outer beltway out of roads like D29, D288, D34 etc. and let Rennes sprawl out to fill in that area and incorporate communities like Saint Grégoire, Vezin le Coquet, and perhaps even out to Chateaugiron. Map for reference:  Why are both sides so convinced of long term growth? Because of this:  A new HSR line between Rennes and Le Man is scheduled to be in service in May 2017, which will bring the total travel time from Montparnasse in Paris down to 1:26, a reduction of 37 minutes. It's thought that this will make Rennes far more attractive for Parisian businesses and for well off Parisians to commute from. The city is betting a great deal on this, including the construction of a large new train station and a number of new buildings intended to create "EuroRennes", a "Breton financial district" right around the train station. Green on this map is new construction.  Here's how it looked last year before construction started.  And the weird ramp thing on the left of the new construction is supposed to look like this. The hole in the middle is the main entrance to the train station.  Of course, not everyone is entirely thrilled about the new HSR line, some are afraid that rich Parisians are going to price everyone else out and/or that Rennes is going to essentially become a suburb of Paris and completely subordinate to it's internal politics. Since this is a Soviet Commubot post here's the obligatory Breton cultural activist bit: Some are afraid that a huge influx of Parisians is going to result in the complete debretonization of the city but the approach most cultural activists are taking the position that Breton culture is attractive enough that these new arrivals will assimilate well enough, which I think is correct.
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Apr 4, 2016 12:17
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Zero One posted:I know culture is different from what I'm used to (and Paris is very expensive) but are enough Parisians really that willing to commute 1.5 hours there and 1.5 hours back daily? The average commute in Ile de France (the region where Paris is located) is 33 mins one way with 32% of people doing more than 45 mins already. http://resources.grouperandstad.fr/les-temps-de-trajet-des-francais-pour-se-rendre-au-travail/ I'd imagine there are some people who'd be willing to either pay way less rent or live in a much nicer house in exchange for a longer commute. My understanding is that most of the new investment is to try to draw new businesses from Paris that want to expand but can't afford to due to high prices. Most of that new construction by the train station is office space, with the thinking being that relatively affordable office space 1:26 from Montparnasse is going to be attractive to certain businesses. Getting to the center from some of the outlying suburbs They're also spending 110M€ turning the old convent building downtown into a convention center. Currently, the closest thing to a convention center is at the airport on the southern edge of town and it's really just repurposed hangars. Here's an article from the end of March that Google Translate might make readable. http://www.letelegramme.fr/bretagne/eurorennes-un-quartier-neuf-sort-de-terre-27-03-2016-11008618.php
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Apr 6, 2016 20:04
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Eskaton posted:Considering my only image of the Mt. Pleasant area is Amish horse auctions at the 4H grounds north of the city, that seems like a big culture shock (I'm talking my parents have taken their horses to the Incredible Dr. Pol before he was famous levels). Weidman, the town where Dr. Pol (whose show I wasn't aware of) is located, is a lot like my hometown so you could say it was a bit of a culture shock. At least I already spoke the language when I got here. Quorum posted:bikeshare Rennes' bikeshare program is pretty neat, borrowing a bike is free for the first 30 mins and if you want you can switch bikes at a station and restart the clock. You can also rent electric bikes for 120€ for the year and at the end of the year you can buy the bike for 365€, which 80% of users end up doing. Reading about bikeshare programs in Wikipedia did yield this little gem about the system in Paris which is pretty  quote:80 percent of Vélib's original 20,600 bicycles have been destroyed or stolen. Some Vélib' cycles have been found in Eastern Europe and North Africa, while others have been dumped in the Seine River, hung from lampposts, or abandoned on the roadside in various states of disrepair, forcing the City of Paris to reimburse the programme operator an estimated $2 million per year for excess costs under its contractual agreement. Soviet Commubot fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 23:28
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Blut posted:In my home city theres a quite successful bikeshare program. To rent out a bike you have to scan your credit card, which means the bikes very rarely get damaged/go missing. I would have thought this was a fairly standard/easy crime prevention method, I wonder is it not in place in Paris? Looking at their website, they do scan your card so I have no idea.
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Apr 14, 2016 15:43
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