Analysis Of Rail Transit And Urban Development In Paris Region Between1900and1970

As other European conturies in19th century, Paris also developed rail transport to solve urban traffic problems. This paper focus on rail transport in Paris region, to analyze the mutual feedback relationship between transportation and urban development. In this paper, rail transport is mainly involved in metro and suburban railway. First of all, the birth and expansion of rail traffic was generated on the basis of urban development. In the19th century, the urban population of Paris had a vigorous growth, and the increased population was mainly concentrated in the downtown area, which caused this region’s poor sanitation and road congestion. Although Haussman renovated the center of Paris, but he didn’t competely solve the traffic problem. The common transport at this time, such as omnibus, tramway, couldn’t meet the travel needs of the public. In addition, with the increase of economic, Paris had the financial foundation for the construction of transport. Sencondly, the rail transport also had an impact on the urban development. This effect could be summarized to three functions of rail transport:basic function, oriented function and additional function. Basic function was to improve the traffic service, which was the primary purpose of transportation construction. Oriented function means rail transport orient urban development. Paris rail transport optimized the spatial structure of Paris. Additional function including the other ones except above. Paris rail transport influenced on urban life and urban culture. Besides, the development of rail transport in Paris had its own particularity. Before the construction, there was a long debate lasted nearly half a century. This discussion was not only the architects’ argument of building model, but also was the contend of power and interest between local government and the state, also included public concerns about the new traffic patterns.This paper tries to comb out the development of Paris rail transit in this seventy years, and on this basis to analyze the interaction relationship between rail transit and urban development, to explore the urban development of Paris in this period.