Paris grinds to a halt
Commuters unable to travel to work during the strikes on public transport, Wednesday, in Paris
Ever since the introduction of the velib – the Parisian city bike – many urban dwellers have been talking about the possibility of running a capital city void of the car. Granted, such claims are at best guilty of utopist hopes. But the possibility of providing first-class public transport, which is both economically and physically attractive, is what makes such versions of utopia a genuine possibility.
There are 10,000 city bikes on offer in central Paris, all of which are used on a regular basis. The metro system is highly efficient with only a five minute walk between each station. The busses are clean, energy efficient and always on time. The customer can take advantage of the city’s public transport network for a mere €54 per month, of which 50% is reimbursed by your employer.
However, the automobile is still a permanent menace in the heart of the French capital killing dozens every year and forever polluting the earth’s atmosphere.
It seems no matter how glamorous a nation’s public transport system becomes the temptation to crawl into your car on a cold morning, still yawning, with caffeine running through your veins, is just too much.
Here, for the second day in a row, seven of France’s most influential trade unions have gone on strike bringing the city to a standstill. Only 3 out of Paris’ 16 individual metro lines have a service anywhere near normal. Suburban rail networks are seriously interrupted and the national rail services were ironically motionless when the first high-speed Eurostar train from St Pancreas arrived in Paris from London yesterday.
Additionally, this kind of erratic behavior, where trade unions hold the government to ransom is commonplace, meaning the country is guaranteed complete paralysis for at least a couple of weeks every year.
Whether the train drivers are right to strike or not, this sort of behavior is exactly why the French are incapable of departing from their dented Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens. People here do not rely on public transport in the same way they rely on their car.
In recent days, Paris has been in grid-lock. The car, it seems, is here to stay. At least until trade unions wake-up, smell the Camembert and realize that their privileges regarding retirement and contractual hours are severely out-dated.
