PARIS — To host the Olympic Games, a city must address several factors, among them security, venues, housing for athletes and visitors and transportation.
Paris won the 2024 Olympic Games in part because of its existing infrastructure, including event venues and an efficient transportation system. And now two weeks into the Games, visitors are largely satisfied with their ability to get around the city.
“As far as the subways have gone, we have had a good experience,” said Wendy Mayer, who is visiting from Lafayette, Indiana. “There's been multiple people at every single subway stop directing you.
“There's signage at every venue stop that tells you what venue is at that spot. There's been a ton of people with little foam fingers directing you where to go.”
Île-de-France Mobilités, the French transportation authority, devised a plan that it described as “tailor-made” for the Olympics Games and launched a mobile-phone app, “Transport Public Paris 2024” designed to enhance travel for the anticipated 500,000 spectators per day.
The entire plan is designed to address three major factors: safety, accessibility and cleanliness.
Safety first
Making visitors feel safe is a top priority, and the travel authority has 3,000 security and safety personnel to attend to its network. This includes individuals on stations and at platforms, but also private security teams.
There is a plan in place to use cyno-detection brigades – officers using bomb-sniffing dogs – to inspect abandoned or suspicious objects. Since 2022 the government authority has invested more than 200 million euros on transport security.
“You see cops everywhere In the transportation system and on the different Olympic sights,” said Georges Dantinee, who lives in Paris. “It’s completely different. For me, it’s very nice and everybody is happy and the cops have been gentle with everybody.”
Île-de-France Mobilités addressed accessibility by creating a designated transport plan for each event, with alternative routes just in case of unexpected incidents.
There are 400 double buses deployed during the Games to transport people around the city and its suburbs.
There are alternative forms of transportation, too, which the travel authority has been promoting, such as bicycles and electric scooters. Paris also is regarded as an easily walkable city, and there are 5,000 customer service staff that are present in stations to help inform spectators.
Changes for cleanliness
The travel authority sought to ensure “an optimal level of cleanliness for all passengers” in the Metro train system.” It has undergone a complete facelift, modernizing 268 Metro stations.
In order to keep many of these stations up to standard, the transportation authority has increased the number of staff, which will be providing service seven days a week with three times the typical level of service.
Organizers also hope to host one of the most cost effective Olympics by using existing venues, which house 95% of the events at the Games.
Paris is known for its iconic landmarks, and organizers used many of them as the backdrop to events or as venues. It is also a city that is used to big crowds as the fifth most visited city in the world.
Despite those efforts, the cost of playing host to the Olympic Games is enormous. To help reduce the debt, the travel authority raised its travel prices 15% during the games.
That hasn’t gone over well with locals, including Dantinee, the Parisian.
“The reason they increased the price to 4 euros instead of 2.15, we don’t understand,” he said.
Francisco Molina is a journalism student at California State University Fullerton taking part in a study abroad program covering the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.