European Railroad Discussion > Lyon Metro-no videos this time!

My adventure in Lyon continues. I now have become truly initiated to the French cult of trains by viewing the TGV, but so far I don't have any TO-worthy shots of intercity rail. So, you must bear my photos of the funky, artsy Lyon Metro and another funky, artsy tunnel-related surprise at the end.

Photo 1: This is the classic Lyon Metro look, with the elliptical windows in the wall separating the two platforms. What appears to be a window reflection at left is the city of Lyon's favorite public art tool: a projected screen.

Photo 2: The train boards at Hôtel de Ville (which literally means "city hotel" but a "hôtel de ville" is a city hall) station.

Photo 3: The projected screen, which displays train times, maps, connections, and ads.

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Photo 4: A train shoots into the station, going the other way.

Photo 5: **DANGER: Rave approaching fast.** I LOVE THE LYON METRO! The trains are wide and are on very short headways, the stations are squeaky clean and full of excellent art, and, connecting with the tram and the funicular networks, it goes everywhere! What's more, it's very fast and gets you from one end of the city to the other in 10 minutes tops, and yet it isn't very noisy in the tunnels at all, and the ride is so smooth that you don't need to hold on to a pole if you stand.

Photo 6: The Foch station, with interesting tile paneling. Almost every city in France has an "Avenue Foch", named after the famous Marshal Foch. In a French accent, it sounds very obscene.

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I told you that there would be a tunnel-related surprise at the end. Indeed there is. While it isn't train related, I walked through this mile-long pedestrian tunnel the other day (under a hill in central Lyon, or rather between the two river valleys at river level) and it was so stunning, I just had to post some pictures.

Photo 7: The entrance to the tunnel, which appears quite dark from the outside. At right is a parallel highway tunnel.

Photo 8: A long panel of drawings made by local elementary schoolers. It seems like all big projects these days have got to have third graders' drawings. This, however, is just an amuse-bouche for the rest of the tunnel.

Photo 9: The interior of the tunnel. There is a section for bikes, for pedestrians, and for buses. It's an anti-car tunnel, a bit like that new bridge being built in Portland for buses, bikes, pedestrians, and light rail.

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Photo 10: The first of many projector screens. This reads "LYON" for a few seconds, but then anagrams itself into "ONLY". The city of Lyon's tourism motto is "Only Lyon", which is a witty bit of wordplay rather than a statement of English conquering the world's languages.

Photo 11: On the surface, this appears to be some lettering that reads "SQUARE BONY". However, we are not on the surface. We are far underground, in a tunnel traveling beneath Square Bony (which is apparently a real square.) Here and there throughout the tunnel are signs displaying what we are traveling under, as well as the distance to each river (the Sâone and the Rhône, whose valleys the tunnel connects). What's more, the red beams rotate across the tunnel in time to soothing music. I would have loved to take a video, but I've given up on videos on Trainorders.

Photo 12: This appears to be a factory producing bouncy yellow balls. This projection screen, like most of the others, would move, with a ball falling out of the tube every few seconds. With the relaxing Zen-like music and the strange images projected on the tunnel walls, this tunnel can be a surreal place, and you almost feel disappointed to exit into the gray, dour city through the Wonderwall.

So, with extraordinary public art, witty slogans, and an excellent system of public transportation, I think I could get to like staying in Lyon. I'll be disappointed to go back to Oregon in three weeks.

Tor in Only Lyon

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