Paris’s Newest Trams and What We Can Learn From Them

Paris’s Newest Trams and What We Can Learn From Them

This video is sponsored by Nebula, the educational streaming service created by me and my creator friends. Check out the link in the description for the Nebula exclusive video or stay tuned to learn more. We were in Paris a few months ago to check out the massive  Grand Paris Express project

That will add over 200km of new suburban metro to the Ile-de-France. But metro expansion isn’t all that’s happening in Paris. There’s also the giant RER  E extension to La Defense, the new CDG airport Express train, and the topic of today’s video: many new trams.

Trams are great, and tram trains  are all the rage these days. So when Paris newest tram line, the T12, opened back in December, we decided we needed to take a look, to see what an express tram in Paris is like. So let’s dive in. I’m Reece and this is RMTransit, a channel

About trams and trains. The Paris tram system is really cool because it’s been entirely built  or rebuilt since the 1990s, and today it has 14 lines with over 250 stops and around 200kms of track, which is big. It’s a huge network, but it’s also super modern.

This video isn’t an explainer  of the Paris tram network, from the rubber tired T5 to the looping T3, but if you’re interested in that, make sure you’re subscribed for a video on that coming very soon soon. So what’s the deal with T12? Well, its an express tram, which means that

In the Paris parlance it’s a tram train. But in many ways it feels like what Canada and the US call light rail, with coupled up trams operating in a number of different contexts. What do I mean? Well, T12 has three distinct sections. The northern section is a mainline railway

Converted for tram train use; The centre section is an almost rapid transit-like leg that parallels a highway; and the final southernmost  leg feels like a typical urban tram, serving a business park and a suburban town centre. The northern leg of the line runs from Massy, where the stabling yard is

Located, south along a former railway line that was one of the RER C’s confusing branches that loops back on itself. This is where the line really stretches its tram train vehicles, which are the Citadis Dualis trams, the model which the infamous Citadis Spirit trams used in Canadian light rail systems were based on.

These vehicles are kind of different from other low-floor trams in that they have a master segment that has two bogies that the other tram segments hang off of. Now, the old RER C branch has wide curves, high top speeds, and the kind of crossing gates that you’d expect on a railway line

That certainly gives this section of the route an express feeling, and which also still feels much more train than tram. After it dips off the rail right-of-way, the T12 serves a stop that has a park-and-ride and a walkway over to the nearby RER C station, since the RER-C used to branch here.

The line then weaves under  and around the rail line over to a highway or auto route, with some tight curves and steep grades on a mix of single and double track. The ability to pretty seamlessly and inexpensively run from one right-of-way context to another pretty obviously makes the case

For tram trains, letting  you kind of stitch together multiple sections of long straight right-of-way to create an express line, without having to build large tunnels or  elevated sections in between to link up those rights-of-way. Once running along the highway, T12 has very few crossings, with lots of straight auto route-adjacent

Track that really lets it get up to speed and feel a bit like rapid transit, also letting it serve the large housing estates in the area and also connecting to a busway that will form part of the future T Zen 4 — not quite a bus not quite a tram — bus route.

What’s interesting is that T12 actually even weaves from one side of the highway to the other, providing stops on both sides, which is admittedly a better solution than running in the median of the highway and providing very unpleasant stops for passengers waiting there. I think this highlights why cost-effective

Infrastructure construction is so important. I often talk about how Paris being able to build transit for less money than Canada, the US, Australia, or the UK lets it build more projects, but it also — on the margin — lets it build better projects. When you can build more cost effectively,

In the same project you might build a bridge or tunnel where you might not be able to afford it if your costs are higher. The final leg of T12 sees the line head out of the highway right-of-way to serve a suburban business park in typical tram fashion,

Before heading to the town centre of Evry with a stop just a block or two from the RER D station in the area. This section feels a lot more like a typical tram route, with more road crossings and tram tracks running  right next to the main road.

All in all, T12 runs 20 or so kilometres, and with 16 stops it has a very wide stop spacing that makes sense with this express moniker. At present, headways are  actually surprisingly low: every 20 minutes for most of the day and every 15 minutes during peak hours. The line could operate more frequently,

But it doesn’t necessarily need to since the line is super fast, connects to rail stations with tons of service, and  takes people pretty directly to their final destinations as a tram after all. What’s interesting about  this line as I said before, is that it reminds me a lot of light rail

Schemes in North America, particularly with its 90m platforms and light rail vehicles that are extremely similar to those we’re deploying in cities like Toronto. But as just tends to be the case for transit in Europe, the T12 is so much better-executed on multiple different levels

From the light rail lines we’ll see in Canada. For one, the line is anchored at both ends by substantial RER stations, with another connection in the middle. I made an entire video about a similar line in Toronto, which will use those same Citadis Spirit vehicles

And which connects at one end to a subway line but ends a few kilometres short of a regional rail line on the other end. The line also makes much better use of existing infrastructure and right of way, which is kind of a given for parts of it

Since this is a tram train after all. But while in North America, new sections of such a route would likely be built down the middle of a suburban street where rails aren’t already available, the sections of T12 along the highway show how to get lots of speed and few grade crossings

By using an existing road corridor, which all means that most of the T12’s route is express as opposed to just part of it being. T12 is also a good reminder that a line does not need to be all double-track. Trains and trams don’t work like cars and roads,

And they don’t need separate unidirectional travel lanes in both directions for their entire route. This flexibility and integration between infrastructure and scheduling lets a transit line run quickly and frequently on infrastructure that can cost less and fit in more places. The design of everything is also just so much more attractive.

The vehicles look sleek and modern naturally, but everything is nice. The catenary is minimal, with few extra wires and even the support poles look good. Green track is used extensively and extends directly onto the lawns of adjacent properties. It just amazes me that in North America we managed to design and build stuff

That looks so much less put together and all at a much higher price, from the cluttered look of the infrastructure to the poor finishing on  the pavings and the stops. I mean, just compare the way the green track, which covers a great deal of the T12 route,

Seamlessly extends out from both of the rails compared to our sorry attempt at green track on the Eglinton line in Toronto. And the care and thoughtfulness of design isn’t only visible in the line’s aesthetic, it’s also functional in the route and right-of-way planning and design. For one, the tram is typically always aligned

At the side of the street, which reduces conflicts and means that trams don’t have to go through the middle of large suburban intersections — not that many exist in Paris anyways. Many of the intersections the tram passes through are actually unsignalized, which means that drivers have to be

More cautious and trams can go faster. It’s the kind of thing that I don’t think you’d get away with in North America, where were obsessed with following the rules and signalizing every intersection, but it allows for this sort of give and take that leads to things actually flowing better at street level.

What’s great is that the trams also basically get complete priority over cars. While this is achieved on the northern railway section of the route using crossing gates, as with on many railways, on the southern section of the route, a similar effect is achieved  by using small, minimal

Two aspect signals, which provide most of the priority, while lacking most of the visual clutter of typical gates. At a high level, trams function so well on the T12 and on other routes in Paris because they act like their own entire layer of transport placed above the road system.

Instead of trams operating in the middle of a street and following the same rules that other road vehicles, usually carrying a single person, have to follow. Streets are usually redesigned to elevate the tram rather than place it in conflict with cars and other road users. And that’s the thing we need to

Learn the most from. Now, we’ve talked a lot about Paris T12 with its very unique tram train sensibilities and how it fits into the city’s geography and landscape. But as I mentioned earlier in the video, it’s not the only tram train service in the city,

With T4, T11 and T13 also  adding to this unique mode. And to tell you more about these unique lines, I’ve made a bonus video that you can watch over on Nebula right now. Nebula is the streaming platform owned by me and my creator friends, featuring over 14,000 titles that you can watch ad-free,

Including exclusive and early-access videos from urbanist educational creators like myself, CityNerd, Life Where I’m From and Not Just Bikes. And of course, you can check out episodes of Jet Lag: the Game a week early so you wont ever miss out on any of the action.

The boys are currently in  the middle of Switzerland playing an intense hide-and-seek game featuring a lot of trains of course, and the game is just heating up. Watching me on Nebula is one of the best ways you can support my channel and my content as a whole,

And right now, you can get an awesome deal on yearly memberships for only $2.50 a month. So go check out the link in the description at go.nebula.tv/rmtransit right now.

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Paris is set to open a HUGE expansion of the metro in the next couple of years, but its many new tram projects have gone severely underappreciated. In this video we talk about the Paris T12 and why it’s so special.

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