Transit Tour: Paris

Starting at Notre Dame and ending at the Eiffel Tower sounds like a classic Paris day. In between, we set a challenge: cross the city using only public transit and discover what makes a system feel truly effortless.

The result is a rapid tour through metros, trams, the RER, buses, bike share, and even the Montmartre funicular—from Châtelet’s maze to La Défense and Saint-Lazare—highlighting lessons on frequency, fares, automation, and street design. With a look at Line 14 and the sweeping Grand Paris Express expansion, this episode captures why Paris remains one of the world’s most navigable transit cities.

Transcript

Kicking Off At Notre Dame

SPEAKER_02 0:18

This week on Transit Tangents, we do Paris using only public transit. We'll discuss their plans for the Grand Paris Express, ride the Metro, bikes, buses, a funicular, and more to put Paris's public transit to the test. All of that and more coming up on Transit Tangents. We are here in Paris in front of Notre Dame. The bell's ringing right behind us as we're here, ready to start our day, riding as many forms of public transit as we can in a day here in Paris. Yes. Yesterday we had a chance to actually go ride Paris' new gondola line. There is an entire video dedicated to that, so go check it out if you haven't seen it already.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

But on this trip, we are gonna be hitting multiple train stations. We're gonna be all over the city of Paris, and like you said, multiple uh types of rail. We're gonna try to hit a funicular, uh a bus, some bikes, and uh see what else happens in between.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Along the way, we'll discuss some fun details about public transportation in Paris, plus the city's new plan called the Grand Paris Express, which adds several new metro lines and extensions, making it easier to navigate around the city. From here, we're gonna head over to one of the largest underground uh kind of station complexes. I don't know how you would yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Uh Chatelay, it's one of the largest underground metro stations in the world, and also one of the busiest, and it connects nine different train lines in central Paris.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I just ran into this website with all sorts of transit station 3D maps this weekend. You can go check them out for yourselves at albertogayamas.cat and see if stations from your city have been illustrated like this.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

There are so many train lines.

Line 1: History, Automation, Doors

SPEAKER_02 1:55

It is an absolute maze down here. A lot of tunnels. Yes. We navigated through the station and boarded a number one metro headed towards La Défense. If you haven't liked this video yet, please consider doing so. It helps get the show to new people. We rode the one and we only went up a quick stop here uh just because we wanted to show off some of the different stations. Uh we are currently below the Louvre, and you can tell when you look around the station that we're below the Louvre.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Uh a lot of the stations or a couple of the stations on the one line actually are themed, and we think this one's one of the cooler themed stations. Yeah. So definitely wanted to see it.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

And because the frequencies are so good, it was very easy for us to be like, oh, let's just get off the train and there's another one. They're wow. There's another train only about three minutes away. In addition to the station here at the Louvre, there are a ton of unique stations included in the Paris Metro, and we'll see a few more of them throughout the day. A very different choice from the design of the metro system in Washington, DC, which we made a video about last year. So we got back on the number one metro and rode it all the way to the end here at La Defense. Uh, it was a pretty smooth ride all the way out. That is one of the automated trains in the system, which is pretty unique. Uh, you'll also see that there was platform screen doors at every single stop along the entire line, which was pretty impressive. Yeah. Um, we haven't seen those on the show before necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

No, I don't think we've really seen many of them. Uh some other cool things about the one line, it was the first metro line in Paris, which opened in 1900. And one of the reasons why they built this line was because one, Paris is becoming a modern city, but also the great exposition was happening and you wanted to connect all of those sites along it. Uh, the one line, if you have ever visited Paris or if you will visit Paris in the future, you're definitely going to take it because it is one of the main tourist lines where you can see the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, or if you want to come out to La de Fonts, I don't think many tourists come out here.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, and this area is like very modern looking. It looks like lots of office towers, things like that. Um, you have the giant monument/slash building as well out here. Uh, very different vibes than in the city center area of Paris.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah. Another unique thing about the one line that we took to get out here, it is a rubber tired metro. Um, we're gonna see these a couple times throughout the episode. This was one of the earlier rubber tire metros. Uh Paris is sort of unique in this. I know Mexico City and a couple of other cities have these, but Paris has really leaned into the rubber tire metro.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah, I'm I'm still a little like we've I mean, I've like read the reasons why there would like places do it. I'm still a little confused, if I'm being honest, because it like one of them was noise. It doesn't feel quieter to me. It it feels maybe smoother in some areas. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I think we'll we'll ride a couple more of them today and then uh revisit what we think about them.

La Défense Hub And Suburban Rail

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yes. La Defense is also a major transit hub on the outer edge of Paris. You have um both the metro served here, you have a ton of buses, there's a tram that serves this area, uh, as well as the RER, which is kind of the more regional trains that serve the greater Paris area. And that is actually what we're gonna check out right now. We are going to get on one of those RER trains to head towards Saint Lazare. Saint Lazare.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

One small correction. We did say that we were jumping on an RER for the L train. The L train is actually a suburban train that's gonna take us from La Dafance over to Saint Lazare.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

In the last week, we actually hit a big milestone, crossing one million views on our channel. Thank you all so much for the support over the last two years. If you're not already subscribed, we talk about public transportation and cities every Tuesday. This train feels a little fancy. It's nice, the lighting feels like blue light behind you over there, lots of digital displays. It's quiet. Actually, like the lights up above, they're like it's probably hard for it to come through on camera now that we're in the light. They're just like just the right amount. Right. Very soft.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

We made it from La France to uh Saint Lazare. And this is actually Paris' oldest train station built in 1837.

Saint-Lazare And The Paris Bus Try

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, and it is one of six terminus train stations around Paris. We've kind of talked about uh the potential for different cities that have multiple terminus stations to connect to them in a past episode. I we specifically talked about Boston's north and south station. Um Paris has six of these different ones around the city. They are very well connected into the rest of the system though, uh, and that's kind of what happened when they were being built out by the different competing train companies at the time. Uh, they all had their stations kind of on the edges of the city, and then folks would be able to connect into the metro and other fo other modes of transit from there.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah. So from here we're gonna check out this station, look around a little bit before we uh hit our next stop.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

So we're gonna head towards the Monma Cemetery, and we had a couple options to get there. We could have taken the metro, but we wanted to give a bus a shot. Uh so we're gonna catch the 80 bus here, hopefully, in just a couple minutes. Ordinarily on the show we try to hit multiple buses throughout the day, but for so much of the day here in Paris, the metro is what made the most sense. Before and after filming this, Chris and I had the chance to ride other buses in the city, which does have an extensive bus system. The RATP alone operates 70 lines that are in the city of Paris, with even more outside of the city. In 2017, 382 million passengers use the RAT buses within Paris proper, and that number jumps to 1.15 billion with a B when you include journeys on the suburban lines. Our frequencies vary as you get further out, but five-minute headways are not uncommon, especially on routes with dedicated lanes. You can pay for the bus with the same tap-to-pay option as in the metro system. Unfortunately, this bus did not give a good showing for the system though. The bus was stuck in quite a bit of traffic, so we decided to walk for a bit here.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Now we're gonna talk about Paris ghost buses.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So after uh an exciting bus ride with uh two people yelling at each other in French, which was quite entertaining.

Bus Bunching And Bike Share Pivot

SPEAKER_02 7:54

It was kind of funny though, because it to me it it I know it wasn't polite, but to me French sounds much more polite. It sounds polite, even as you're arguing. Yes, I was like, oh. Overall, though the bus was pretty smooth in terms of getting on and payment and everything, but uh obviously the traffic in the area we were in, not great. Um we actually the second we got off the bus, we asked the driver to get off early. Uh it took us about one minute, and then we saw the bus that was in front of ours of the same number there. So we were watching some bus bunching happening. Bus bunching, yeah. Yeah, real real-time bus bunching. We had been seeing around the city the last few days quite a few like dedicated bus lanes. So I would imagine in those corridors, the buses don't deal with the traffic so much, but we were literally just showing up to a big construction site area, so it made sense that there was traffic there.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

We are now walking through Montmartre cemetery, and we are going to uh sort of traverse through the cemetery, grab a bike, and then head over toward uh Montmartre.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Montmart Cemetery opened in 1825. It includes over 20,000 plots with a handful of notable historical figures being buried there.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Alright, so we made it over to one of the bike shares. Uh, Paris has done a really good job of making an absolutely enormous bike share network across the city and the region. When you look at the map, the bikes just sort of go on forever, and there's a lot of stations. Couple that with all of the work they've done on adding bus lanes and bike lanes throughout the city, reducing traffic, it makes riding through Paris a really, really pleasant experience.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah, and we're gonna talk more about that in an additional episode, but for now we're gonna hop on one of these bikes and we'll pick it up from on the bike ride with the with the new the new toy that I got. My uh Jerry got me these for Christmas. Got some meta glasses for the ride, so if you're noticing some new angles, that's where they're coming from. Chris and I got a chance to do a little biking on the trip, and then later in the week, my husband Jerry and I had a chance to ride along the river to go see the Statue of Liberty. Overall, the bike network in Paris is extensive with over a thousand kilometers of cycling infrastructure in the city. A lot of investment has been made since 2020, starting with the corona pistes, which initially were meant to be temporary. Ahead of the 2024 Olympics, even more infrastructure was added. We did an episode focusing on biking in Paris a few weeks ago, linked below, discussing how the city cut vehicle traffic by 50% in just 20 years. It's worth checking out once you finish watching here. So we tried to bike over here.

Montmartre Walk And Funicular

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Fortunately, there were three bikes. Somebody told took one, and then only one of them had power. And in hindsight, they took it while we were talking about being like, hey, we're gonna ride these bikes.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, not thinking about that. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Uh so instead we took a nice walk through uh my mantra area, and now we are at Sakuracour. And uh yeah, it's just such a beautiful area. We got a chance to take the funicular.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yes, the funicular is very exciting. Uh, one of them is down for maintenance right now, but uh it cuts out quite a few stairs. More of a novelty than like real transit, but I mean it's busy. It is.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

It's also fairly modern looking.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Uh that surprised me for it being in a pretty historic area. Absolutely. What's kind of cool about it too is you can use it with any of your kind of normal Paris transit tickets. So there's kind of a wide range of options for tickets. Um, there is an app you can buy like a card. Um, I found that it was quite difficult actually to get set up with the app. I ended up downloading, I'm not exaggerating, three apps in total so that I could have the pass on my phone, have it so that the tap would work at the stations here. And one other I think was for payment, which was insane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

If you are coming here as an American, also you have trouble with the apps because there's a a phone verification and it doesn't like American phone numbers. So the trick for us is either you can buy a card at the stations and have a physical card throughout your whole visit, or if you have an Android or Apple wallet, you should be able to download the Navigo card and buy any tickets using that, and then you just tap your phone to go.

Tickets, Navigo, And Fare Gates

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yep. Uh pricing-wise also varies based on that. So I was able to use my like plus four nine Germany number to like have a regular rate. So for my five uh for my week-long pass, it was roughly 35 euros. But the like equivalent version, if you don't have an EU phone number, was like 75 euros. It's around 70 something, 72 to 78 uh Euros for a five-day pass. So a little uh on the expensive side. Yeah, I mean it's it's they're literally charging twice as much for people visiting, which I guess if you can afford a trip to Paris is like, you know, they're okay with charging you more to subsidize their transit system. I actually can't blame them in that regard, but uh yeah, interesting though, uh nevertheless. Once you do have the passes, though, it is fairly easy. It's just tapped at uh turnstiles building into the metros on the buses, they just have them near the doors. Um, different than what we experienced in uh Zurich, in Munich, and in Vienna, where all three of those places and most of uh yeah, all three of those places are basically on our system. Yeah. Um here there are fair gates everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

And also we have been, we've had our fare checked uh here as well. Uh yesterday we were leaving a station and there were people with portable kiosks just making sure that you did have a valid ticket. Didn't jump over turnstiles. So don't jump over turnstile. Yeah, yes, yes. Don't do it anywhere, but don't do it here. Yeah. Um also another cool thing about the Mumantra uh neighborhood area, the streets are really narrow, and so the buses here have had to adapt to narrower streets, and you will see a couple videos of just shorter buses. Um they're actually really cool, uh, but they look just like the larger buses, just a little smaller, and they're just mini buses, and they uh wind their way through this neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Um from here, we're gonna check out two train stations that are very close together, and we'll give you a little bit more of uh background there. Alright, we made it to Guerre de Nord. Uh this is the essentially north station for Paris. If you want to go anywhere north of the city, this is where you go. So the Eurostar departs from here where you can go from Paris straight to the London City Centre at St. Pancras. Uh, you can also go to Belgium, the Netherlands, uh, some places in Germany. So a really big station.

Gare Du Nord To Gare De L’Est

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, and then what's interesting is right next door, like we could walk right out that door and be at another station that is uh kind of the East Paris station. And that's where I arrived the day before yesterday. That would be trains headed uh towards Frankfurt. Um, the direct train that goes between Berlin and here in Paris uh leaves from that station as well. So um definitely a major transit hub both for intercity rail and long distance rail as well as for the metro state system that we just took to get here.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So yeah, and this also serves as a major hub if you want to go anywhere within Paris. I mean, you have several lines that all connect into this station. So if you arrive to Paris via Eurostar or whatever train it may be, you can very easily get anywhere you need to be in the city.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

We just finished up some lunch. Uh, gonna keep moving so I don't fall into a food combing here, probably over eight.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Uh five guys, maybe not the best thing if we're now gonna be traveling across the city. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Uh speaking of the number five, though, we're gonna get on the number five. That was so convenient. That was good. And uh we will have one transfer on our way to go check out the bus deal.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

So this is actually the first train station we've been in today that didn't have the barriers in between the train and the platform. And the reason for that is this is actually a non-automated train. So still has a driver, still very manual. All the automated trains, they all have those barriers so that uh people don't fall into the train because when it's a you know driver train, they have to check and make sure everybody's clear of the platform before they take off.

Bastille Stop And Transfer Rethink

SPEAKER_02 15:18

That being said, there there are some systems that are like have drivers that are installing the platform screen doors for the same safety reasons and also like someone tripping and falling, someone being pushed, all that sort of stuff. We have a ton of fun ideas for 2026. Help us make them a reality by supporting the show on Patreon, linked below. We are here at the Bastille Monument. This is the site of where the former Bastille Prison was, and in 1789 it was stormed, and it was kind of what really ignited the French Revolution initially. Uh, to get here, we rode the number five metro train uh from Gardunot. Uh, and we had to make a transfer here anyway to get on what is Paris's newest metro line that we're gonna be talking about shortly, um, and we figured we would make the stop here. From here, we're gonna try to make our way towards the newest metro line in Paris, which is the number 14. To get there, we do have to transfer onto the number one, uh, and then at the station called. We will transfer at Guerre de Leon to get onto that train. It might sound like a lot of transfers to be going between all of these things, and historically, Chris and I have been fairly negative when talking about transfers, uh, to the point where uh I'll insert the username below, I'm blanking it off the top of my head here. Um, but someone has commented on several of our episodes saying that we're thinking wrong about transfers, and when you are in a city like Paris where the metros run so frequently, we're talking, you know, generally better than five-minute frequencies on a lot of the stuff. A transfer isn't that big of a deal and is just making it so you can move more people, more directions faster. So assuming that the frequencies are high like they are here, a transfer doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially when you're just walking off of one train, walking right onto another, and you're continuing to move on your way. Uh when we talk about transit in places like Texas, when we've where we've done you know Houston in a day, Austin in a day, Dallas in a day, a transfer on a bus or even rail in those places often can mean like a 15-minute time penalty where you're just standing around waiting. So that's why we have a negative reaction initially uh to transfers. But here it's a bit different. So Chris just pointed out that there are like five hallways alright here. I'll flip the camera around in a sec so you can see it, but it's kind of an interesting setup.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, some of the hallways are entrances to the Metro line, some are exits only, which makes a lot of sense for the number of people that are using this.

Riding New Line 14 And Wayfinding

SPEAKER_02 17:53

We boarded our number one train and rode just one stop to Guerre de Leon. Here we were able to transfer onto the number 14. The one thing about the glasses it's hard to get shots of the trains. We boarded the new line 14 from Guerre de Leon, which actually had a pretty cool garden scene going on inside of the station, which was a unique little feature. And part of the reason we want to check out this line is it is one of the newest in Paris' system, and a friend of ours recommended this station that we're standing in in particular, which is Yeah, which this station is Vieux Vif, if I pronounce it correctly.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

And this is an amazing station. It is absolutely beautiful. You can tell that there is a plan for this to be more of a hub because it is absolutely massive, but right now it is completely empty.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yes, uh, this is the only line that runs through it at the moment, but uh as part of Paris' kind of grand plan to build a whole bunch more metro lines over the next several years, uh, there will be the line 15, which will kind of be an east-west line that runs across the southern part of the city that will also connect right here uh into this station. So it'll be a much busier hub at that point.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, and so the line 14, it just started service almost exactly a year ago through this station. If you wanted to continue on this line, you end up at Paris's other airport, uh, Orly. That's uh the uh the uh opposite airport to Charles de Gaulle. You can fly into either one for Paris. But the train ride getting over here was really nice. The trains were brand new, the signage was very impressive. Probably the best signage I've seen on uh an actual metro line.

Grand Paris Express Overview

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah, I mean the wayfinding was like crazy. They like it literally showing you on the map exactly where you were as the train was moving, showing you next stop, showing you potential connections. A nice mix of geographic and diagrammatic maps. Yes, if you don't know what those are, you can go back and watch our mapping episode about them. Um but overall, a really nice experience and nice to see such a new metro line being opened. There is a ton more we could go into describing what has been dubbed the Grand Paris Express. The short version is the creation of four entirely new lines to the Paris Metro, plus extensions of line 11 and 14. In total, this means 200 kilometers of new tracks and 68 new stations. Many of these new lines are more orbital in nature, making connection between further out parts of Paris much easier. Line 15, when fully complete, will entirely circle the city. The first section in southern Paris is scheduled to open in late 2026. Overall, this plan probably deserves its own episode, so maybe I'll try to make another Paris trip happen for the opening of line 15 and cover it then. Um from here we're actually we we kind of passed intentionally where our goal was to go. We haven't ridden a tram yet today, uh, so we're gonna ride back a few stops to go catch the T3 tram. But we wanted to make sure we caught this station because it is really huge and beautiful and pretty cool to just see. We've seen this a couple times where it gives you the five-minute walk shed around the station. Uh, when we were in more in central Paris, I also saw one that had the five-minute one, but also a 10 and 15, just to give you an idea.

Tram T3: Grass Tracks And Priority

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Also, if you go back and watch our London map episode, we talk about Ludgeable London, which is one of the first uh programs in a major city to show walkable maps next to transit to help people better navigate as pedestrians as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

We just rode the T3 tram. Uh we got off the 14 uh metro rail line, which we talked pretty extensively about before, very nice. Uh, walked uh a couple hundred feet probably to the tram, and the tram is kind of one of many sort of it's uh crosstown routes. Sort of like an orbital. Depending on how you count them, there are approximately 15 tram lines in Paris. Those trams are mostly operating in the more suburban parts of Greater Paris and are operated by RATP with a few exceptions. What is really impressive though is just how new so many of these lines are, with 11 of them opening between 2012 and 2025. Also included in these trams are a handful of tram trains, which sort of do exactly what you would imagine. If you're interested in learning more about tram trains, we're planning a future episode specifically about them. Very well ridden the whole time. There were people getting on and off throughout.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

The route was nice because it was separated from traffic. I did have to stop at lights, and I'm not sure what the signal priority looked like, but we we got through it pretty much. It went faster than I thought we would have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

I thought we might be on it for an hour when I looked at the map. Agreed. Had some nice grassy tracks for a lot of it, dedicated lanes the whole time. It wasn't sharing lanes with traffic. But yeah, overall, pretty pretty smooth.

RER To Eiffel Tower Finish

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So at the end of the line, we ended up at Ponteguerigliano. Ponteguerrighino. I don't know. We think this is more Italian than French at this point. But we got to the end of this line. We were actually picking up the uh RER, which is the sort of suburban regional train. And this one is the C train. It's gonna take us from this station to the Eiffel Tower.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yeah, so uh very excited to kind of end our day over at the Eiffel Tower. So we'll our train should be here in a couple minutes and we'll pick it up from there. We we skipped one mode of transit here. Elevator. Oh, we're almost at the first level already.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

We got it because we're we're transit tangents tough.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yes. It's a deep cut.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

As Tyler said.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

If you remember that episode, uh say it in the comments. We are at the highest point that we can get to on the Eiffel Tower right now. Uh use our own leg power to get here.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Uh tickets are surprisingly cheaper to use the stairs versus using uh the elevator.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yes, yeah, but that's that's okay. It was actually not as bad as I thought it was gonna be getting up here. Um the top is closer renovations, otherwise we would go up there.

unknown 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

That's gonna be a dizzying view.

Final Takeaways And Viewer Requests

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Well, we just finished our 15th City in a day episode here in Paris. And overall, I think this is a pretty amazing transit city.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, no, I had a really good time. The metros were super easy. We rode way more metro today than we normally would. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Um I've never seen a metro where the stops are closer.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Yes, yeah, they're first off there everywhere like that because the stops are so close together. And then it's just extensive. I mean, there's so many lines everywhere. Uh occasionally you might get like recommended a bus, but it's also just like a five-minute walk, and then you're out of metro. So um definitely very accessible from that regard.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Absolutely. So if you found this one interesting, please go ahead and leave a comment. Let us know what we missed, let us know what you thought was really cool about Paris, or if you've been here, like tell us about your experiences.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

And if you want to support the show directly, the best ways to do so are via our Patreon, buy us a coffee, but you can also just subscribe to the channel, send an episode to a friend, and that'll help us out.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Helps us get to our 16th setting.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yes, which is to be determined. We don't have a specific one in mind yet. We gotta get on that.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

But if you want us to come to your setting, put it in the comments also.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yes. Uh with all that being said though, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your transit engine Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I'm saving that do public transit service at watch me go.