InsideTransit

By now most of us have seen the “flash mobs” that gather in the subways and train stations around the world. In NYC, we have seen the pants off mobs and in Sydney we saw a Riverdance flash mob gather and dance to the Riverdance tunes.

But this is the first time I’ve ever seen a NYC subway train turned into a fine dining restaurant. The conversion took place on the L subway line which runs from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Melena Ryzik has the story of the train headed for Brooklyn that offered fine foods including: caviar, foie gras and filet mignon, and for dessert and chocolate panna cotta wrapped in gold leaf.

A number of supper clubs participated in the event and boarded the train and different stations along the route that crosses Manhattan on 14th Street.

The “event” brought in just over $1,600 and tickets were priced at $100 per “seat”. Sure beats the bag of McDonalds you usually see someone eating on the subway.

Ok, here’s another one from the “uhm wtf?” file. A bus operator for Greyhound buses crashed into a wooded area –but get this, the bus operator forgot to set the parking brake after she parked the bus at a travel center in North Carolina.

The bus traveled backwards across Highway 61 and somehow wasn’t hit by cars traveling on the highway. The bus came to rest in the wooded area on the other side of the highway.

Fox8 news in Greensboro, NC has the details on the incident. Can you imagine the shock the bus driver must have received? She parks the bus, heads into the travel center, grabs some food, maybe a scratchoff, uses the restroom, comes outside and finds her bus traveling backwards across the highway.

Maybe Greyhound should play the same (very annoying) announcement you hear in the San Francisco airport when you take the airtrain. As it pulls into the station, we hear “we are entering the station, set luggage cart brake to on”.

There are 2 major international airports around Paris: Charles de Gaulle (a.k.a. Roissy) located north-east of the city, and Orly, located south of the city. You can get to either airport either by taxi or Air France coach for € 15 to € 70, depending on where you start from and where you’re going.

Both airports are run by the Paris airport authority. An excellent image outlining all your options is available here (french only). What follows gives you a general overview of how to get from/to the airports by public transit.

Charles de Gaulle
… by bus
There is a special shuttle (city bus) called RoissyBus which will take you from the CDG airport to the Opéra métro stop for € 9.40. There are also two regular bus routes during the day (#350 from Gare de l’est, and #351 from the Nation métro station), and two night routes (#N140, and N143). Both buses will cost you three (3) zone-1 tickets.

… by train
The quickest and most relaxing way (in my opinion) to get from/to the airport: the RER B line (€ 8,70). Keep in mind this is a commuter-train, so if you are travelling during the work-week the train will be quite full with commuters and there is not much room for luggage.

A quick note on taking the train from CDG:

* There are many automatic ticket dispensers at the CDG train terminal, however North-American credit cards are notoriously difficult to use with these dispensers if they do not have the chip technology (if you have American Express, forget about it)
* If you have to buy your ticket from an employee, the lines are impossibly long. If you’re lucky enough to know someone who lives in Paris, the best thing to do is have them send you a Paris-CDG ticket in the mail before your trip. It will save you a lot of time.

Orly
… by bus
Similar to CDG, there is a bus service (OrlyBus) to take you from the Denfert Rochereau station to the Orly airport (€ 6.60). You can also opt for regular city-bus service from/to the airport with bus routes 183, 285, and 292. Night bus: N31, and N131

… by train
Both the RER ‘B’ and ‘C’ lines pass close to the Orly airport, but you will need to take a shuttle to complete your journey. Use the OrlyVal driverless light rail trainsit line to get you from the airport to the Antony train stop (RER ‘B’) for €10.25, or the “Paris by train shuttle” to get you from the airport to the Pont de Rungix Aéroport d’Orly train station (RER ‘C’).

Summary:
In my opinion, getting to Paris from an airport by train is the best way to go, but there is one disadvantage: all the stairs in the Paris métro! Once you get to Paris by train, you might want to complete your journey by taxi if you have a lot of luggage with you.

If you are interested in riding the Paris Metro subway system, here’s a listing of all of the current fares as of April 12, 2011. We’ve also created a how-to Paris Metro guide with more information about riding the system.
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Before we get started with our how-to ride the Paris Metro and commuter rail, a little geography: the city of Paris is delimited by a ring road called the Boulevard Périphérique. The city is located in a region called “Ile-de-France”. When you see a reference to the “Ile-de-France”, it is referring to the city of Paris and its surrounding suburbs.

The Paris transit system is made up of four (4) types of transportation: métro (subway), bus, train and tram, and is run primarily by the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (ratp.fr), which has a rich amount of information in English on their website for tourists.

The Ile-de-France is divided into 6 transit zones with the city of Paris being zone 1. These zones apply only to the commuter train network discussed further on.

The Metro
The Paris metro system is made up of 14 underground and above-ground subway lines numbered 1 through 14 with two lines assigned the suffix “bis” indicating that they were at one time part of the main subway line, but now only serve as an extension to a specific line. As these “bis” lines are outside of tourist areas you won’t need to worry about them.

As is common with most subway systems, the direction of the train is indicated by the name of the last stop in that direction. Two of the metro lines (7, and 13) branches so they will have two terminuses, but, again, this is outside the tourist region, and so you will not need to worry about it.

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Earlier this week I posted a video of a man in a Big Wheel challenging a NYC city bus to a race. At the end of the race, the text on the screen indicated that the bus moved at a speed of 3.8 miles per hour.

Can you imagine a bus traveling at over 150 miles per hour (250km/h)? Developed by Wubbo Ockels in the Netherlands, the Superbus can travel at these speeds. The “bus” (looks more like a huge racecar) can carry 23 passengers in what appears to be first-class comfort.

The Superbus will cost 1 million euros per bus and cost 14 million euros to develop. The narrator in the video below notes that most of the cost of development was paid for by Dutch taxpayers. I still prefer rail any day over this Superbus.

Here’s a video of the prototype of the Superbus at a race track in the Netherlands.
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Just about a month ago, I wrote about the San Francisco transit agency BART and how they are looking for riders to give them feedback about new seating options in the manufacture of their new trains. I noted, “I don’t know about you but I often wonder just what might be stewing under the fabric seats the subway cars use. They often look “stained” and sometimes there are some interesting smells also coming from the seat region.”

Today the New York Times has a long article (don’t read it if you just ate) about the condition of the seats on BART. You see BART trains use fabric seats (why I don’t know) and they apparently hold germs better than a running back carrying the football.

Some notes from the NYT post:

• “Fecal and skin-borne bacteria resistant to antibiotics were found in a seat on a train headed from Daly City to Dublin/Pleasanton. Further testing on the skin-borne bacteria showed characteristics of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the drug-resistant bacterium that causes potentially lethal infections…”
• “High concentrations of at least nine bacteria strains and several types of mold were found on the seat. Even after Ms. Franklin cleaned the cushion with an alcohol wipe, potentially harmful bacteria were found growing in the fabric.”

Just think about it – if that nasty bacteria transfers to your backside of your pants, you could be carrying that nasty crap on your ass all day.

With all of the heavy budget cuts hitting transit agencies across the U.S., it seems there are also less transit cleaners which may make for even dirtier trains in the future.

My friend Keran sent me a link today that is frankly awesome if you are into transit or into maps.  It’s a video created by Chris McDowall which shows you the Auckland, New Zealand public transportation system in real-time (you can watch the video below). Chris notes, “The animation begins at 3am on a typical Monday morning. A pair of blue squiggles depict the Airport buses shuttling late night travellers between the Downtown Ferry Terminal and Auckland International. From 5am, a skeleton service of local buses begins making trips from the outer suburbs to the inner city and the first ferry departs for Waiheke Island. Over the next few hours the volume and frequency of vehicles steadily increases until we reach peak morning rush hour.”

It’s really neat to watch the video below in HD and full-screen. It’s easy to see where Auckland’s downtown business core is located just based on the weight of the movement during the day. It’s also interesting that there seems to be a lot of routes still operating at midnight. Keran says it’s also easy to see where the service gaps are around the city.

Auckland offers three types of public transit: rail, ferry and bus. The system is called Maxx.
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This week brings new fare increases to the NYC subway and bus system. The base fare didn’t increase but riders will receive a smaller bonus and the price for monthly unlimited cards have increased. As a person who used to live in a two-fare zone, these increases don’t seem that high.

In any case, the NMA animation group out of Taiwan put together a video for their audience which apparently shows you what it is like to ride the NYC subway. My friend Mark would probably say this is accurate. The video explains that the entire system is in a state of disrepair, train operators drink (and carry stylish shopping bags) and sleep on the job, there are lots of perverts and sociopaths riding the subways and medieval battles break out daily. They also used a W train in the video which no longer operates.

Warning: This video could be considered NSFW.
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Ok this is pretty sweet. In 1953 the BBC in London made a point-of-view film of a train running from London to Brighton. In 1983, 30 years later, they did it again. You can watch the journey below – it’s almost like nothing changed! I will suggest you have a bottle of Pepto near you as the movement is very fast in this video.