Transportation in Paris
Walk less than five minutes anywhere in Paris and you will hit a metro station. The lines sprawl across the city like a great maze, twisting over each other in an elegant series of connections. Less than two minutes between stops. Lightning fast. Clear signage.
There is no way on earth that I will be able to go back to the Green Line after this.
That’s not to say the metro is without problems. In peak hours it feels like a sardine can. I spent twenty minutes pressed against the door, not even needing to hold on to a bar. The vastness of the metro makes finding one’s way difficult without an internet connection and Google Maps. There’s also the pickpockets to worry about, and the people that just insist on talking to you. But all in all? If a magician offered me the chance to swap the T with the metro, I would take it in a heartbeat.
Getting to class is simple. Grab a croissant from the excellent bakery right next to the Duroc metro station. Hop on the 13th line, change to the 1st line, walk for a few minutes and voilà. It’s a pretty long journey—between 30 to 40 minutes depending on the line at the bakery—but not a difficult one by any means. After a few days I was riding the metro with the same confidence I feel when taking the T.
Other methods of transportation (not necessarily used by me) are cars, motorcycles/vespas, buses, and bicycles. These all combine into a frankly terrifying soup of traffic. Cars don’t bother to stay in their lane, sometimes run red lights, and sometimes go the wrong way down a one-way street. Motorcyclists drive up onto the sidewalks to park their vehicles. And one must always be on alert when walking around Paris, lest they be hit by a cyclist moving faster than some of the cars, with no patience for pedestrians. I’ve been in a car twice since getting to Paris—once from the airport, once in an Uber—and both times made me fear for my life and wish I had a barf-bag handy. So there’s a tip to anyone visiting Paris: avoid driving if at all possible. According to a few Parisians I’ve spoken to, they’re actually very good drivers, and accidents are rare. Still, it doesn’t feel that way from an outsider’s perspective!
