A Little Look at Lyon (Transports Lyonnais)
fbb and Mrs fbb were due to have a rail-based holiday in Lyon a few years ago. It was cancelled due to lack of custom; which is a pity, because the city has some magnificent public transport. Four lines of metro ...
... are grouped with two funiculars in the "old town", one of which is run as a heritage line.
Then there are five tram lines with visually striking rolling stock.
Line 5 is relatively new and Wikipedia's helpful graphic hasn't quite caught up yet!
As an extension of line 3, there is a fast tram from city to Airport ...
... which looks equally impressive! It is not part of the TCL [Transports en Commun Lyonnais] network but (UK politicians please note) fully integrated with it.
The TCL web site does not distinguish between trolley- and motor-bus but there are plenty of both. Of particular interest is the "C" group of routes marketed for their frequency and high quality.
C1 to C3 are trolleybi; C4 to C26 are motorbuses with significant sections of reserved or dedicated road space.
Repérables par la lettre C, les lignes majeures proposent un service de haut niveau. Elles proposent un service attractif et permanent tout au long de l’année, y compris durant les périodes de vacances scolaires. En bref, il s’agit des lignes de bus sur lesquelles on peut compter à tout moment et en toutes circonstances avec les itinéraires les plus directs!
If fbb were to want to travel to the location of the parked ex London Routemaster bus (see yesterday's blog : read again) he would need to catch a C26 from Lyon Part Dieu station. The bus would be a Citelis 18 articulated vehicles like this ...
... and a fair bit of the journey would be on reserved trackway, like this ...
The C26 was created in 2011 by upgrading parts of two existing routes:-
Inchangée en itinéraire entre la Part Dieu et l’Hôtel de Ville de Saint-Priest, la ligne C25 empruntera un nouvel itinéraire dans Saint-Priest (passage par l’Esplanade des Arts et la rue E. Rostand) afin de proposer à davantage de quartiers les liaisons attractives proposées par la ligne vers Parilly (correspondance avec le métro D) et le centre de Lyon. Si elle effectuera dorénavant son terminus principal à la Plaine de Saythe, un trajet sur deux sera toutefois prolongé du Lundi au Samedi entre 5h00 et 21h00 pour desservir notamment la rue de Collière, le boulevard des Nations (ZA Europa, Maison d’Arrêt) et la Plate Forme Sogaris Promotrans. Pour la desserte de ces différents secteurs, la ligne C25 remplacera l’actuelle ligne 94.
The TCL web site offers journey planning, a frequency summary and departure times from each stop. With considerable effort fbb was, however ...
... able to find a (very) small print link to a PDF file of the printed timetable leaflet. The key words (bottom right) invite you to download (téléchargez) a diagram (schema) and timetable leaflet (fiche horaires) for the line.
En France, comme en Angleterre, on doit préserver un voile de mystère au sujet des horaires d'autobus!
But an on-line leaflet was dowbloadable ...
En France, comme en Angleterre, on doit préserver un voile de mystère au sujet des horaires d'autobus!
But an on-line leaflet was dowbloadable ...
Every journey is shown which is very necessary indeed as the Monday to Friday timetable pays not even lip service to a repeat pattern of times although the result is roughly (very roughly!) every 12 minutes. As Stuart Linn of the "Résaulutions" consultancy would explain, "typically French!".
click for an enlargement
Alighting at Saint-Priest Plaine de Saythe (centre of map) ...
... it is but a short stroll to the junction of Route d'Heyrieux and Ancienne Route d'Heyrieux where the RM was parked a fortnight ago. But it might not be there now!
A brief blog cannot really do justice to "Transports Lyonnais" but at least it gives a flavour of what is available. Of course the cheapest way to get there is by IDbus all the way from London Victoria - only 16 hours on the coach as previously blogged (read again). But tomorrow we enter the dark and fearful world of government transport policy; we return to the "24" theme on Sunday.
In the meantime our readers might like to explore the TCL Lyon web site (here). And then fbb's mistakes and misunderstandings can be corrected by better informed blog commentators!
In the meantime our readers might like to explore the TCL Lyon web site (here). And then fbb's mistakes and misunderstandings can be corrected by better informed blog commentators!
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STOP PRESS
News just in (well 1600 yesterday actually), is that the current Director General of South Yorkshire PTE, one David Brown ...
... (Moriarty to fbb's Holmes), has accepted the post of DG and Chief Executive at Merseyside PTE. His salary will be a modest £149,000 per annum. Fortunately he will be too high up the ladder of power to spoil Merseyside's leaflets and maps by replacing them with Sheffield look-alikes? Surely? Please! [Eaxmple of a Merseyside leaflet here]
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Next Bus Blog : Friday 1st March
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