July 21, 2002
Automatic Transit
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| Chatelet. Juillet. |
You may know the good things about the Paris metro:
- frequent trains! Every 90 seconds or something.
- many stops! You're never more than a few blocks away.
- reliable service! Point-to-point: add 2 min for each stop and 5 min for each train-change, accurate within seconds.
The bad things:
- it stinks like the sewer just inches above. :(
- the train-changes can be long.
- short-ish trains (made up for by the frequency?)
Now for something you wouldn't have guessed: strikes. Damn near everyone in France is in a syndicat (union) and damn near all of the go on greve (strike). Even neurosurgeons (if you remember Adam Gopnik's Paris book) and even the train drivers.
Apparently they wait until December each year. Why? Not to disrupt la Noël! Over the years they have negotiated, get this, 13 months of pay for 12 months of work. So they get paid double in December. And if they strike in December, they don't need to get the last unit of pay; they can last the strike.
But what you see here, John Henry, is the driver-less metro train of the future. Running from Madeleine to BNF Francois Mitterand, this lovely train doesn't give a damn if your leg is caught in the door.
Posted by amol at July 21, 2002 10:43 PM