Lots of anticipation… and lots of frustration. Recruited by the APF France Handicap association as a volunteer for the Paris Olympics, Chloé quickly had to face the difficulties of access to transport in the capital for people with reduced mobility (PRM). Victim of hemiplegia which paralyzes the left side of her body, the young woman can only walk “very slowly”, and quickly gets exhausted on slopes or stairs.
“The tram was perfect. But from the moment my stops were no longer served because of the competitions, I had to take the metro, go up and down hundreds of steps, deal with broken escalators and notice the absence of elevators almost everywhere,” she regrets. The same observation goes for Marianne, a forty-something in a wheelchair who has faced several disappointments.
While trying to reach the brand new Saint-Denis Pleyel station, this woman from Burgundy was stopped by the breakdown of the two elevators at the Gare de Lyon that would have allowed her to reach line 14, the only one 100% adapted for people with reduced mobility. The same week, while trying to board an RER after watching a beach volleyball event, she could not find any assistance to deploy the adapted ramp on her train. “I was told that I would have had to book twenty-four hours in advance to benefit from such help, and that there was nothing they could do for me,” she says.
These unfortunate experiences perfectly sum up the daily life of users with disabilities on public transport in the Paris region: despite numerous adaptations to the network, particularly ahead of the Olympic Games, the sheer impossibility of travelling on certain lines is compounded by unexpected technical or human complications encountered along the way.
An unsuitable metro
While the capital will host the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8, many investments have been made by Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the RATP and the Paris City Hall to welcome tourists and athletes with disabilities – and thus bequeath to the people of Ile-de-France this “legacy” concerning public transport, so requested for PRMs. IDFM reminds L’Express that “2 billion euros” have been devoted to making the rail network accessible in Ile-de-France, allowing for example the complete renovation of the Saint-Denis and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines stations. According to the organization, “240 RER and railway stations out of 268 have been accessible to PRMs since this summer, or 95% of passenger traffic”, as well as “100% of RER A and B lines” and “100% of tram lines”. Bus accessibility is also highlighted: in Ile-de-France, “540 lines” are now accessible to people with reduced mobility, including “all 65 Parisian lines”.
Lamia El Aaraje, deputy mayor of Paris responsible for universal accessibility and people with disabilities, points out that 22 million euros were invested in April to make 1,785 of the 2,200 bus stops in the capital accessible. But for these lines to be considered “accessible”, the RATP website specifies that it is sufficient that 70% of the stops are usable by wheelchair users. “This means that you have to get off one stop earlier or later and manage. Not to mention that sometimes buses cannot park properly because of motorists or that stations are not served due to works,” summarizes Annette Masson, president of the Tourism and Disabilities association.
When asked, Lamia El Aaraje specifies that the route “has been designed so that any user can access a suitable bus stop less than fifteen minutes from their home”. In Paris, “between 74% and 92% of stops” would thus be accessible to people with reduced mobility, depending on the lines.
But despite these advances, a major obstacle continues to be highlighted by users: the Paris metro, which is over a century old, is only very poorly adapted for people with disabilities. Only 29 stations are currently 100% accessible to people with reduced mobility out of the 320 on the network – or 9% of them, concentrated on line 14 and part of line 11, according to IDFM data. By 2030, the construction of lines 15, 16, 17 and 18 should increase this meager percentage, with 39 new adapted stations.
But in the meantime, the associations are not hiding their frustration. “The metro is the huge black spot of the network,” says Nicolas Mérille, national accessibility advisor for APF France Handicap. Alas, he compares the work of other European cities on the subject. “When London hosted the Olympic Games in 2012, for example, the city reached 18% of accessible stations, including on the historic network, even though the London underground dates from 1873 and is much deeper than that of Paris,” he recalls. “Why is France not capable of this? And why don’t we take advantage of the work carried out on the three or four stations renovated each year to adapt them for people with reduced mobility?” asks the representative.
“Elevators are hell”
Well aware of this weakness, the regional councillor delegated to the disabled and administrator of IDFM Pierre Deniziot mentions the age of the metro, the “extremely dense” state of the city on the surface, compliance with safety standards and the costs that such renovations would generate. “We carried out a study on line 6: the estimate is nearly one billion euros, for a duration of work of between six and ten years,” he illustrates.
Despite these obstacles, IDFM communicates its desire to “move things forward step by step” particularly on the historic stations of the Paris metro. “The work is colossal, but we can make things change. We are reaching out to the Paris city hall and the State in this regard”, indicates Pierre Deniziot. On the municipality’s side, Lamia El Aaraje assures that a request will be made “at the start of the school year” to order the Ile-de-France region to make public “the studies that were carried out as part of the Olympic Games on the Paris metro”, to consider new work.
While waiting for such projects to be made official, people with reduced mobility in the Paris region continue to fall back on the few accessible stations… On condition that the elevators leading to them are not broken. On the morning of August 13, L’Express counted down on the IDFM website 80 machines out of service across the entire network. In some stations, such as Gif-sur-Yvette (Essonne), Esbly (Seine-et-Marne) or Porte des Lilas (Paris intra-muros), all the elevators were even out of order. “People with reduced mobility find themselves stuck at the start or end of their journey due to the lack of working machines. Sometimes, it takes four or five days to get them back into service, which has huge consequences on their daily lives,” regrets Annette Masson. “Elevators are hell,” admits Lamia El Aaraje, who says she contacts elevator operators “very regularly” to “urge them” to repair their machines. “We are at the maximum of penalties that we can impose on them on this subject, but it remains very complicated,” she explains.
So much so that some PRM visitors, like David, simply prefer to avoid using public transport in the capital. Having come as a volunteer for the Olympic Games, this Strasbourg native brought his electric wheel with him, which he uses on his wheelchair. “Without it, it was dead,” he confided to L’Express. “Between the two-hour journeys by bus or tram and the blocked elevators, I preferred to ride.”
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