France

Operating or Under Construction

Angers
Bordeaux
Bourg-St. Maurice-Les Arc
Caen
Clermont-Ferrand
Grenoble
Laon
Le Mans
Leyman
Lille
Lyon
Marseille 
Mont Blanc
Montpellier
Mulhouse
Nancy
Nantes
Nice
Orleans
Paris
Rennes
Rouen

Saint-Etienne (Paris)
Strassbourg
Tignes
Toulon
Toulouse
Val d'Isere
Ville Valenciennes
Villefranche-La Tour de Carol

Planned

Brest
Douai
Dunkerque
Fort-de-France (Martinique)
Le Havre
Reims
Tours

Honorable Mention
La Rochelle
Loire Region
Marne

Paris
Subway, Light Rail, Commuter Subway

(also see St. Etienne)


Subway (Metro)

Simply known as "the Metro",  Paris' subway system opened its first line in 1990. As of 2009, it covers 214 km and has 16 lines and 300 stations, most of which are underground.  It is considered the second busiest subway system in Europe after Moscow.


Lines 1, 4, 6, 11 and 14 use rubber tires. Most of the lines were built using cut and cover, and so follow the main roads. The Paris metro is also known for having stations paced at close distance to one another.

Painting by Ashley Wells


Paris Metro Home Page
Welcome on the RATP server
Metro de Paris
@Paris Network ~ @
Paris City ~ Transport ~ Metro

Closed stations of the Paris Metro
Brief Bombardier Page on the MF88 Metro Car A Map including the new LRT
Private Paris pages on RER and the Metro, with links,a brief history and maps

Le Métro de Paris
Mercurio links to Paris Metro images New RATP page on Paris's new ligne 14 (Thanks to Frederic Deltaire)
Unofficial Paris Metro Site
ERS images of the Paris Metro and RER

Le Métro de Paris 100 Year Anniversary of the Paris metro by RATP (thanks to Frederic Delaitre)
The missing Victor Hugo station (also thanks to Frederic Delaitre)

A Jan 2000 page about the Paris metro, direct from the City of Light, with both French and English versions. Be sure to check out the photo of the month.

Select Youtube videos



Tramway

Paris has 4 tramways, lines T1 through T4, with T8 under construction and due to open shortly. Several extensions are underway and in the planning stages. Because metro expansion is limited (the metro was designed to operate only within the central city boundaries), the tram was a Godsend to RATP. None of the tram lines intersect, although that will change soon when an extension to T3 will allow transfers to T2..

T1. Paris LRT (Isle de France)
 
The Saint-Denis Bobigny LRT line is 11 km long, it serves 26 stations and carries more than 80,000  passengers daily . Commissioned in 1992, it was the first step of an overall transport plan to develop  a public transit system inter-connecting suburban areas around Paris.  T1 has the only subway stop in the light rail system at station La Defense.

T2. Paris (Tram Val-de-Sein) 
T2 started with an 11.3 km long tram line including 13 stations. It runs on an existing track between Issy-Plaine and Puteaux and then on a new section between the station of Puteaux and that in the business district of La Défense. It entered service in July 1997 and carries 25,000 passengers daily. In November 2009, an extension consisting of 4 new stations opened, bringing the total stations on T2 to 17. The extension will connect Issy Val de Seine to Porte de Versailles

T3. Paris (Tramway de Marechaux)

This 17 station, 7.9 km opened in 2006. It carries over 100,000 people per day and is known as Paris' first modern tramway.

T4. Paris.

Tramway T4 is considered a tram-train, and is run by SNCF, the French national railways. It connects a series of villages with RER Lines B and E.

Skyscraper City Paris light rail thread




RER Commuter Subway


Though a true commuter railway, much of Paris's RER lines resemble a metro. Many talk of how to define a metro, and purists often reject the RER as a partially underground commuter network because of the distances between stations. However, we beg to differ because other systems classified as "true" metros share the exact same charachteristiics as the RER lines. It is a true metropolitan railway with subway sections using subway-like rolling stock.