Tram

The first part of the Paris circular tram line opened in 2007. I wrote about it in my previous blog, see here and here. Since a couple of days, 11 years later, you can now consider that about three quarters of the circle has been achieved. I took a walk along the additional part of the line the day before the opening, last weekend, from “Porte  de la Chapelle” to “Porte d’Asnières”.  (This should mean the end of a couple of years’ traffic jams – until the work with the next extension, probably bringing the line to "Porte Dauphine", will commence.)

A number of empty trams were to be seen, testing was ongoing, the last details were taken care of… We are in the northern part of Paris, perhaps not where too many tourists find their way. The tram line follows the “Boulevards of the Marshals” (here Berthier, Bessières, Ney – all Napoleonic ones).

Most buildings along the line are rather uninteresting, just “normal”… We have the contrast between the old Opera warehouses (with Charles Garnier as architect – I talked about these buildings here) in front of the newly opened Palace of Justice (see my post here) with Renzo Piano as architect. … and I could see at least one “Morris Column” and one “Wallace Fountain”…

The trams are running over nice green grass – I wish I could reach the same result in my little garden.

The tram line has honoured a number of ladies by giving their names to different stops. These already existed: Maryse Bastié, Alexandra David-Néel, Séverine, Adreinne Bolland, Delphine Seyrig, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosa Parks, Colette Besson. Two new names appear on this prolongation: Not much to be found on (Jeanne) Angélique Compoint except that she lived 1826-1907, was a farmer’s daughter… and that her family for some reason has given the names to several Paris streets. Easier to find information about the famous photographer Diane Arbus (1923-71).  

The circular tram line is quite often more or less following the trace of the circular railway abandoned in 1934 – “La Petite Ceinture”, on which I posted a number of times, e.g. here. One could ask, why not use the existing tracks? The answer given is mostly that the connections to different metro and bus lines would be too difficult to ensure.