Why Can't We Have Such Nice Things?

A month ago--seems like a year with all of the travel that happened in the interim--Glenn and I visited an exhibit on the Paris Metro.  There was a lot of historical information about the building of the Metro, which I thought was quite interesting, but also a significant section on the future plans for expanding it.  These plans are exciting, ambitious, futuristic.  And they are not just pie-in-the-sky:  they have been approved and are currently proceeding.  The plans, in short, are to create a circle line well beyond the periphery of Paris proper and connect it to Paris with a series of fast trains.  It is called the Grand Paris Express.  Here is a Forbes article I just found discussing the plans and the exhibit we saw:  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferleighparker/2023/11/22/the-new-paris-mtro-is-coming-and-its-a-very-big-deal/?sh=c1e17cd31843 

The title of the post arose from what I must have muttered a dozen times walking through the part of the exhibit devoted to future plans.  There is a stark contrast between current public transportation infrastructure in Paris and major US cities, of course, but the gap becomes a yawning chasm when you consider what will be for the next generation of riders.

Many US cities have poor or rudimentary public transportation systems, of course, but there are a few, Boston and NY, for instance, that are lucky enough to have inherited networks of underground tunnels from early subway systems.  My frustration with those cities is particularly acute.  The really difficult part--excavating tunnels and stations under exisiting densely-populated areas and laying track--has been done for them and the easy part--just maintaining the track and running the subway--seems to be beyond their the capabilities.  Plans on the scale of what Paris is doing are entirely out of the question in the US.  The MBTA is busy trying to get the Red Line to go faster than walking speed through Cambridge.      

I hope my utter frustration with public transportation in the US is palpable from this post.  I can tell you it's real and more painful given what other countries have shown is possible.  The political economy, geographical, cultural, and other reasons for this stark difference are topics for other posts (or, in fact, a book, that I'm currently working on).  Instead, here, let me tell you a bit about the exhibit.

We walked through a history of the Paris Metro first, rich in artifacts such as old maps showing soil quality, board games designed to encourage ridership, engineering drawings, old signage, and some pieces of fine art inspired by the Metro.  Below is one of the original Art Deco signs that graced the system a century ago and are now difficult to fine in situ.  

  

Here are two of the remarkably beautiful technical drawings from early Metro lines.  I was amazed that so much detail not directly related to the engineering of the lines was included, but I was also pleasantly surprised that the drawings had been so well-preserved over the course of many decades.  

And here is one of the Art Deco embellishments that were so common in the Metro a few decades ago.

Then the exhibit proceeded to description of the future plans accompanied by many models and maps.  Below is a scale model of one of the suburban stations.  They are all quite distinct and architecturally interesting.

The exhibit also had a lot of information about the artwork that had been commissioned for the new stations.  Below is one of the many pieces they displayed or described.

Finally, I will leave you with a love letter of sorts to the Metro, which I wrote in my previous Paris blog six years ago:

https://pariswiththeellisons.blogspot.com/search?q=subway