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[[Transport in Paris|Paris' transportation]] network is very diverse and exists literally over many levels. Its bus, "Tram", the "Métro", Autoroutes, trains and planes together all serve to maintain a high level of communication between the city's many different districts and beyond.
==Streets and Thoroughfares==▼
Paris is well-known for the non-uniformity of its map. This seemingly haphazard arrangement of streets, alleys, squares, boulevards, and avenues is a result of a superimposition of one street plan upon an earlier other.▼
As with the birth of most agglomerations, a first network of streets was formed by the built-up areas around paths, roadways and places of trade, and a second formed when land surrounding these was divided and sold for building - in the French tradition, a plot of land was usually divided in a series of long and narrow parallel plots extending to both sides of a central lateral strip reserved for a passage across it. Very rarely was a street planned in advance. ▼
A few exceptions aside, Paris' growth remained true to this schema (for over eight hundred years!) until the mid-19th century city renovations by the [[Baron Haussmann]] laid waste to entire quarters to make way for a network of new Boulevards and Avenues that make much of [[Paris]] today. Many of the city's winding and narrow streets still remain, but one must search through the quarters behind the Avenues to find them.▼
The 1970's City-limit-hugging circular [[Périphérique]] expressway was the first real change since the above, as were narrow "expressways" along the quays of the [[Seine]] river and a few inner-city underground passages. It is not the map of the streets that is changing most these days, but the streets themselves: A recent movement towards prioritising Public Transportation systems and eliminating "through-city" traffic has created barricaded bus/taxi/cyclist alleys, narrowing the passages reserved for automobiles and delivery vehicles. Although lightening circulation within the city itself, this tendency is a source of heavy congestion to the Capital's gateway thoroughfares.▼
==Public Transportation==
Line 28 ⟶ 37:
The capital's bus system has been given a major boost over the past decade. Beginning in early 2000, Paris' major arteries have been thinned to reserve an "express" lane reserved only for [[bus]] and [[taxi]], and more recently, these normally sign-and-marking-designated lanes have been isolated from the rest of regular circulation through low concrete barriers that form "couloirs" and prevent all other forms of [[circulation|Paris circulation]] from even "temporarily" entering them.
▲==Streets and Thoroughfares==
▲Paris is well-known for the non-uniformity of its map. This seemingly haphazard arrangement of streets, alleys, squares, boulevards, and avenues is a result of a superimposition of one street plan upon an earlier other.
▲As with the birth of most agglomerations, a first network of streets was formed by the built-up areas around paths, roadways and places of trade, and a second formed when land surrounding these was divided and sold for building - in the French tradition, a plot of land was usually divided in a series of long and narrow parallel plots extending to both sides of a central lateral strip reserved for a passage across it. Very rarely was a street planned in advance.
▲A few exceptions aside, Paris' growth remained true to this schema (for over eight hundred years!) until the mid-19th century city renovations by the [[Baron Haussmann]] laid waste to entire quarters to make way for a network of new Boulevards and Avenues that make much of [[Paris]] today. Many of the city's winding and narrow streets still remain, but one must search through the quarters behind the Avenues to find them.
▲The 1970's City-limit-hugging circular [[Périphérique]] expressway was the first real change since the above, as were narrow "expressways" along the quays of the [[Seine]] river and a few inner-city underground passages. It is not the map of the streets that is changing most these days, but the streets themselves: A recent movement towards prioritising Public Transportation systems and eliminating "through-city" traffic has created barricaded bus/taxi/cyclist alleys, narrowing the passages reserved for automobiles and delivery vehicles. Although lightening circulation within the city itself, this tendency is a source of heavy congestion to the Capital's gateway thoroughfares.
==National and International Rail Connections==
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