The métro is cookin'

"Heat Wave:  In the Paris Subway Oven" was the exaggerated headline in the popular tabloid Le Parisien two days ago (Canicule: dans la fournaise du métro parisien).  

As I read the article yesterday, I realized that this hot subway situation is probably one of the reasons why there is such a crowd of people walking to work on the Rue du Commerce in the morning.  Line 8 -- which goes straight up the Avenue Félix Faure and the Rue du Commerce -- of the métro must be very uncomfortably warm and stuffy.

View from the Port de Suffren walkway between the Eiffel Tower and the Pont de Bir Hakeim.

Miraculously, I have not been on the métro even once yet this summer.  I've been walking instead. Tom had a couple of métro rides after walking with Dan on a couple of evenings.  He didn't complain, but he was on Lines 4 and 10.  Le Parisien reports that the hottest lines are 6 and 4.  

Much of line 6 is not a subway; rather, it is an elevated train.  Because there are fewer underground stations (like caves, with slightly cooler air) and no air conditioning units on this line, it is darned hot.  Le Parisien's reporters took a digital thermometer around with them to check the temps.  On Tuesday afternoon, when it was 88 degrees outside, it was 92 degrees inside the Line 6 train.

Tiny playground and café tucked in the Champ de Mars.

That sounds bad, but at the same time, the humidity was only 45% in the train.  To a South Floridian, that doesn't sound all that horrible.

So far, in what Parisiens have been calling a heat wave, we haven't been too uncomfortable because we have avoided walking in the heat of the afternoon, we've trapped the cooler night-time and early morning air in the apartment, and we've avoided being trapped ourselves in restaurants in the warmer evenings.  Even restaurants that have air conditioning do not use it, or it doesn't work very well.  

So yesterday, when Dan showed up in the evening wanting dinner, Tom and I had to go to the grocery (which is air conditioned!).  We were out of coffee anyway, and that is a true emergency in Tom's opinion.  So at the grocery, Tom and I picked up nice, cool, picnic-like food to have at home:  country ham from the deli, tabbouleh salad, eggplant ratatouille, fresh cherries, cheeses, olives, and bottles of water, both flat and sparkling.  Then we added a fresh baguette and small apple tart from the bakery across from the grocery.  Voila!  Dinner!

Walking along the path between the Quai Branly and the Port de Suffren
in the early morning.

In this heat wave, the night-time temperatures have been going down into the 60s and there have not been air pollution events -- until now.  Last night was a little uncomfortably warm, and the air pollution index has risen to almost dangerous levels, where it will remain today and tomorrow. 

In the heat wave of 2003, which killed 15,000 people in France, many elderly people died because of the air pollution, much more so than the heat.  Now we are elderly (or at least, Tom is), and we must be careful. 

So the apartment is closed up now, and I finished my walk early in the day.  I have urged Tom not to walk this evening, when the air and heat will be much worse.  Fortunately, this real heat wave will last only for today and tomorrow, according to Accuweather.

Then we will return to normal summer weather, which the Parisiens still might call a heat wave.

The métro almost certainly will remain hot and stuffy for a while, until cooler weather returns.  Le Parisien reported that Line 4 was 90 degrees, just about as hot as Line 6.

Looking down at a houseboat moored at the Port de Suffren.  I think many of these
houseboat residents use potted plants and container gardens to help keep their quarters
below deck cool.

Lines 14, 9, 2, and 5 are theoretically air conditioned.  In practice, Le Parisien reports, the A.C. on the trains doesn't work because the air in the stations is stifling hot.

But it isn't all bad.  The Lines 13, 7, and 8 aren't quite as hot as they would be because they have mechanical ventilation -- a super-current of forced air.  I notice on my walks that a construction area near the intersection of Rue Fremicourt and Rue du Commerce has signs indicating that the purpose of the project is to improve ventilation in the subway.  At that location, this would benefit both Lines 10 and 8.  

Still, passengers say that Line 13 is still way too hot because it is so heavily used -- too many hot human bodies pack that train.

Monument to General Diego Brosset facing the Quai Branly.

The coolest subway?  That would be Line 2, at 84 degrees on Tuesday, as measured by the Le Parisien reporters in one location.  In another location on the line, however, the temp was 91.  

The transportation authority, RATP, does not plan to implement air conditioning throughout the Paris subway system -- for ecological and technical reasons.  "Air conditioning has a strong environmental impact.  It consumes lots of energy and reappears in the form of heat in the tunnels and on the platforms," said one RATP operator, according to Le Parisien.

RATP tries to be sympathetic, however.  Up until Monday, RATP agents had distributed paper fans and 65,000 bottles of water to passengers.  Well, that's something!