Strolling by the "cable C1", first cablecar of the Paris area due to open in 2025: https://www.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/le-reseau/projets/cablec1

Calling a cablecar "innovative" in the 21st century is a stretch, but it may have its space in this particular location (crossing a shuting yard, expressway and high-speed railway). Let's see if the reality will be as bright as the artwork.

Arrival in Paris. Earlier this year I wrote about how ticketing for suburban trains is terrible & lagging ages behind, notably the online app only covers Paris city: https://mastodon.social/@cycling_on_rails/112932408097224820

This should change in 2025 with the overhaul of ticketing and introduction of a 2-tier system: bus/tram vs. metro/trains across the whole Paris area.

Meanwhile, still queues at the physical ticket machines, and still no translation of the information panels... except for generic pickpocket warnings...

A lot has been said about Paris' notable cycling improvements in the last decade. But it doesn't feel quite like it in the more conservative boroughs of the North-West.

Walk a few streets away from the touristic sights, and the space is clogged with endless taxis, endless parked cars that don't seem like driving & endless construction sites taking over the sidewalks. Traffic jams also block pedestrian crossings.

Little space for pedestrians/bicycles & not a single tree on any regular street.

Continuing the trip at Massy-TGV, which will be part of @jon 's #CrossChannelRail study. The TGV platforms are built under a gigantic parking lot, with entrance directly at the drop-off zone on the street. 🚕

Pros for Channel trains: there is only one entrance, and some sort of area could be repurposed to conduct security checks (they sometimes do Ouigo or TGV ticket checks). Cons: passengers would then wait in a grim underground platform (Southbound pictures, but Northbound should be similar).

Looking to the other side, I've previously written how far the TGV station is from suburban trains: https://mastodon.social/@cycling_on_rails/112948311826588032

Now there is a bridge in construction over a new bus station. This seems highly overkill (and quite ugly to be honest) given the amount of bus traffic. And the renderings only show stairs/escalators... 🚫♿️ in 2024... 🙄🤦‍♂️

This direct train Lille-Bordeaux takes almost 6h, twice than the theoretic non-stop time of 3h, because of all the (long) intermediate stops (57min in total 😯).

This train makes sense as an intercity train though: lots of people coming in and going out at each station & traveling for a few stops.

For the whole stretch it's much faster (only 4h) to take a 1h change of station in Paris.

Bordeaux: a train station forecourt as it should be: walk out straight to the tram stop, without having to cross a highway. 💯

(There is also a car drop-off just under, although it wasn't busy at this time.)

The last train of the day was a TGV Duplex in the latest "Océane" livery, which serves destinations to the South-West of France: https://web.archive.org/web/20221206152333/https://www.sncf.com/fr/groupe/newsroom/bapteme-tgv-oceane

It boasts 10% more seats than previous arrangements, but that's by removing luggage space and cramping seats. At this point it's not very far from a Ouigo. 😬

Cool kids will like the row of 5 seats at the end of the lower floor.

On the upside this is the only TGV Duplex version offering spots for assembled bicycles. But it's a whooping 2 spots out of 556 seats... Of course, these spots are filled with luggage when not reserved, as there isn't enough luggage space overall. Not ideal for trains customized for touristic destinations.

I'm willing to bet there are fewer spots for folded & packed bicycles than in the other liveries.

Not Bordeaux: when a train station is poorly designed so it's a 20 minute traffic jam every time a train arrives. 😅🚙🛻🚗🚕 @apicultor

There are buses though, but most are scheduled only every 30 minutes or less, and stuck in the traffic jam too. Once away from the station, the bus ride went smoothly. 👍

Fortunately, the public transport (mostly bus) network in the Bayonne-Hendaye urban area is fairly good. The buses are modern too, most of them electric. Unfortunately, the timetables are quite random. Sometimes they are this close to following a regular cadence, but still drift a minute or two per hour (in inconsistent directions).

More frequent services are planned a week from now, let's see if they introduce some more cadence. 🤞

Took a walk around #Bordeaux 's train station. At first it was typical French: narrow sidewalks that barely fit a trash bin. Or a ridiculous sign before a scaffolding telling you to cross, without any safe crossing. At this point better remove the sidewalk altogether and make it a zone 20. At least there was barely any traffic.

But things started to improve towards the city center!

Back to Bordeaux, where someone forgot a pink luggage. After many speaker announcements in French threatening to use the police... they send the police, who just sent a dog to sniff it and got someone to move the luggage. Proof that there's no need to block traffic for 2 hours for security theater, even if you're called SNCF.

However, number of announcements made in English: none. The name didn't sound French, but regardless it would be good to assume non-French passengers forget luggage too!

Fast forward to this afternoon, where a failure in the platform-indication systems triggered a bit of a mess in Paris Gare de Lyon. The fallback was a QR code on all screens, which wasn't great either...

1. Screen explanation only in French.
2. The QR code points to a website that fails to load (https://garesetconnexions-online.azure-api.net/dynamic-qr-code), and redirects to an app to download. Not great for #a11y
3. After downloading a 40MB app (size on Android), there was no platform information either!

1/2 #SNCFail