“For the health of all of us, let's leave this seat free. Line 1 and RER A users have discovered this message on the platforms since Wednesday, April 29. A few words on stickers stuck on the seat backs allowing travelers to wait for their train or metro. More exactly one seat in two is indicated by this sticker. This is the start of the RATP campaign to promote social distancing in the metro.
Maintain a meter distance between travelers, this is the request made this week by the Prime Minister to transport operators. A challenge that must be met by the management by May 11 and the end of confinement. Objective to say the least difficult if we consider the transport flows which are likely to be generated by a gradual return to normal. Before the coronavirus crisis, 4.1 million passengers passed through the Paris metro every day.
Soon a vast ground marking plan and messages in the trains
"We are working hard on a set of measures to achieve this objective of respecting social distancing," it was said this Friday, May 1 at RATP. If the installation of stickers was scheduled even before the speech of Edouard Philippe at the Assembly, other arrangements are being considered and arbitrated. A vast ground marking plan is notably being prepared in stations, corridors and stations. As well as messages and stickers will be displayed in the trains.
May 11 deconfinement in the metro: "I will take care of myself and others"
In addition, according to our information, the engineers of the management are reflecting on a specific transport plan allowing the RATP network complex, its numerous entrances, inter-stations and connections to be adapted to the need to manage passenger flows and respect social distancing rules. A plan which, if adopted, will inevitably lead to restrictions on access and movement.
In the meantime, the first stickers placed on the platform seats divide passengers as to their efficiency. “I have full confidence in the government's measures to protect us. I believe that with the conscience of the people, that is enough ”, reacts Sylvie, metro Gare de Lyon direction La Défense.
"If everyone follows these stickers and makes efforts for themselves and others, that will be enough. I think above all that we have to clean the doors, the chairs because we touch them all the time. And maybe also disinfect your hands by entering too. "
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
In the corridors of the Bastille metro, Simone, in her seventies, has another opinion: "I'm from the medical world, so it makes me laugh a little. I even find that a little bit asshole. When there are going to be lots of people and tourists, with their suitcases etc ... we will not be able to be within a meter of each other, even with labels. I will not come on the metro. "
Same skepticism on the side of Didier, quinca BCBG. "I don't find the message very clear," he underlines facing the marked seats, Bastille metro station. I think that it is necessary more to call upon people's intelligence rather than to park them, mark them, direct them in this way. "
Our articles on the coronavirus
- A global crisis: our latest articles published
- In figures: our dashboard to monitor the epidemic
- Confined life: advice, testimonies and rules to respect
- Coronavirus, the essential to know: every day at midday, our newsletter to take stock
- In questions: the editorial staff's answers to your questions
- Tribute: these caregivers died on the forehead
- Economy: consequences for companies and employees
- Podcast: in Paris, humans are confined, birds sing loudly
