Winnipeg, meet Paris — a transit comparison

Opinion

One fine July morning, we’re walking the dog as we spot Coun. Jeff Browaty boarding a relatively empty Transit bus on his way to work — two days and one transatlantic flight later, we’re packing onto a crowded commuter train headed for downtown Paris.

Our recent trip to northern France made us reflect extensively on how we get around, though our photos app would suggest other things were grabbing our attention.

In this piece, there will be comparisons between Winnipeg and French transportation networks, though we recognize each system has its own context.

As we’ll detail in a bit, driving downtown in the big French cities can be downright inconvenient, especially when matched with a reliable, efficient public transit system using GPS tracking that seemed to be in order.

From a driver’s perspective, downtown Winnipeg can have its inconveniences too, particularly if you are still haunted by the memory of the days when The Forks parking garage was free, but we don’t have a competitive transit system yet. So, let’s use our travels as an allegory through which to question the Winnipeg way of doing things.

To explore the regions of Hauts-de-France and Normandy at our leisure, we rented a car. This appears to be pretty much essential to visit monuments like Vimy Ridge, which are out of the main cities.

Gee, is driving in the city different in Europe than in Winnipeg! If you’ve been turned around in the roundabout at the Outlet Collection, give some of these French roundabouts a try. Add to that pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooters coming up on both sides of you and you have a real challenge to face.

One thing we can say in defence of the French way is that everyone is attentive to their surroundings, which is not always the case here in Winnipeg. (Cue Facebook community group posts about “drivers today”). And, thankfully, these crowded areas are all 30 km/h zones, giving everyone ample time to react. The slower speed limit is particularly helpful considering that Apple Maps has a habit of taking you down one-streets in the wrong direction.

Another lesson we learned during our trip is to get a clear picture of what the parking situation is like before arriving at the hotel. For example, we were not expecting our underground parking to be accessible only after driving over the sidewalk and a bike lane. Street parking in core areas is nearly impossible, but one thing of note is that all cities still had parking meters. Interesting, huh?

Highway driving in France is refreshingly polite: vehicles going the speed limit or even under it aren’t being tailed; they are simply passed in the left lane. When it comes to mid-highway roundabouts — where the speed limit drops from 90 km/h to 30 km/h without a warning sign — drivers are again attentive. No R-cuts were observed during our commutes.

After this road trip, it was time for train travel to get to Mont Saint-Michel. It might have been a good area to keep the rental car because public transport isn’t available in the evening from the nearest train station to Mont Saint-Michel and the area’s hotels all offer surface-level parking lots. No need to cut across sidewalks!

On our return trip to Paris, a connecting train was cancelled, so the rail service had the foresight to hire a bus coach in its place and get all travellers to their connecting trains that way. How proactive!

Back in Paris, it was time to put their public transit system to the test. First, most routes involved the dreaded transfer — often between metro and bus lines! The metro cars can get very squishy during peak hours, especially due to structural improvements shutting down other lines. However, the metro is efficient and easy to navigate.

When it comes to their buses, we recommend getting a seat in the front half of the bus, so that you can see the screen with the list of upcoming stops. If you are in the back of the bus, you must rely on being able to decipher a French GPS voice reading off stop names you’ve likely never heard before. This is an oversight and only encourages back-of-the-busophobia, for those of you who remember that Winnipeg Transit campaign, circa 2009.

One of our favourite things about travelling is how experiencing different cultural norms makes us reflect on our own.

Are we too car-centric? Could we be more forgiving as drivers? Is transferring so bad?

These are among the important questions we need to ask ourselves as we evaluate moving closer to the transit mindset of Parisian streets and away from that of the St. Boniface Industrial Park’s Paris Street.

Jesse Hourie and Amanda Murdoch are a married couple who share household chores, an interest in travelling and a Free Press subscription.