The Tram
Last weekend in Clermont-Ferrand was the inauguration of the Tram. Having been in the town since April, and since my French bosses backed out of their contractual obligation to rent us a car, because the French are cheap beyond all belief... where was I? Oh yes, the Tram. So I had to walk 60 round trips to the Michelin office. As the route from the VolcanHotelVille to Michelin HQ follows the tram line, I was able to watch most of the construction myself. The Tram is a light rail system that runs a loop around town. Clermont-Ferrand is building one because a ton of other French towns are building them, and the argument is that the Tram will increase tourism to the town. The validity of this logic is about like saying that, if you put a Tram loop around Momline Illinois, the tourists would just flock there. Of course they won't - it won't have much of an impact - we're talking about Moline, IL here. You go to Moline if you're lost, if you work for John Deere, and that's about it. The same is true of Clermont-Ferrand. Possibly there are some people who come into the city from the surrounding countryside to spend an evening "in town" but they'll still come if there's a tram or not.
So this weekend was the big opening of the tram line. Because it's light rail, it shares the right-of-way with pedestrians and cars. I'm not sure where I picked up this distinction, but I did. Houston learned a lesson about this the hard way - they put in a light rail system without educating the public about how to deal with a train in the middle of the road. The result in Houston was that cars and trains ran into each other all the time, and sometimes the trains even hit pedestrians. Not good.
In Clermont-Ferrand, they will likely experience the same kind of issues, because the French are only slightly better at driving than the Panamanians, and the Panamanians are awful. It's too early to tell though, because the Tram in Clermont is running on a limited schedule. It's a French project, you see, so it was delivered late, and not working quite right. You may have seen the news recently about Airbus and their 2 year delays on delivery of their new ridiculously big plane, the A380. The Tram in Clermont does not stay on its track, and they suspect it will take another 5 weeks of testing before it is working right. Not surprisingly, people are hesitant to ride a train that regularly jumps the tracks.
The Party for the Tram inauguration was scheduled months ago though, so even though the project is late and not working right, the French still throw a party to celebrate. There were fireworks, fire eaters, belly dancers, and midgets. Yes, midgets. I'm so sorry I missed it.
So this weekend was the big opening of the tram line. Because it's light rail, it shares the right-of-way with pedestrians and cars. I'm not sure where I picked up this distinction, but I did. Houston learned a lesson about this the hard way - they put in a light rail system without educating the public about how to deal with a train in the middle of the road. The result in Houston was that cars and trains ran into each other all the time, and sometimes the trains even hit pedestrians. Not good.
In Clermont-Ferrand, they will likely experience the same kind of issues, because the French are only slightly better at driving than the Panamanians, and the Panamanians are awful. It's too early to tell though, because the Tram in Clermont is running on a limited schedule. It's a French project, you see, so it was delivered late, and not working quite right. You may have seen the news recently about Airbus and their 2 year delays on delivery of their new ridiculously big plane, the A380. The Tram in Clermont does not stay on its track, and they suspect it will take another 5 weeks of testing before it is working right. Not surprisingly, people are hesitant to ride a train that regularly jumps the tracks.
The Party for the Tram inauguration was scheduled months ago though, so even though the project is late and not working right, the French still throw a party to celebrate. There were fireworks, fire eaters, belly dancers, and midgets. Yes, midgets. I'm so sorry I missed it.
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