It’s been a significant other on many a go back and forth throughout the Paris underground, impressed artists or even given its identify to a well-liked bikini wax taste. But all excellent issues should finish, and such is the destiny of Paris’ iconic metro price ticket.
After 120 years of dependable provider, the small oblong card is being phased out, ushering in a contactless long run for town’s public transportation.
The finish has sparked mirrored image – blended with a little bit of nostalgia – for Paris commuters, a lot of whom noticed it as a antique logo of town.
“Sure, it’s progress, but I’m old-school,” stated Brazilian vacationer Jarbas Luiz do Santos, who’s been retaining metro tickets as souvenirs since he began visiting Paris two decades in the past. “The end of the metro ticket is also the end of a certain way of travelling.”
From Gainsbourg to bikini waxes
The metro price ticket was once born in July 1900 with the inauguration of the Line 1. It got here in various colors through the years and advanced from a punch card to a magnetised card within the Nineteen Seventies, nevertheless it all the time retained its signature form.
That 30-by-66 millimetre rectangle discovered many different makes use of through the years as neatly, from bookmark to makeshift notepad to cigarette clear out. It additionally made its manner into French pop culture, the celebrity of singer Serge Gainsbourg’s 1959 hit ‘Le Poinconneur des Lilas’ (The price ticket puncher of Lilas station), a fortunate appeal for Yves Montand within the 1953 movie Wages of Fear and the duvet of Raymond Queneau’s novel Zazie within the Metro.
The metro price ticket’s form even gave technique to an eponymous bikini wax taste, often referred to as a “landing strip” in English. The “ticket metro” was once discovered to be the most well liked bikini wax amongst Parisian girls by way of a 2020 find out about in Version Femina mag.
“It’s small and only lasts about an hour or an hour and a half,” stated Grégoire Thonnat, a collector and writer of a e book at the historical past of the metro price ticket. “But somehow we get attached to it. It’s quite irrational!”
The plan to eliminate the metro price ticket has been within the works for years, and was once initially slated for 2021. But the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with a world scarcity of microchips compelled Ile-de-France Mobilites, which operates the metro’s ticketing machine, to put off.
Sales of metro tickets nonetheless general 550 million in keeping with 12 months, the an identical of over 50 tonnes of paper. Reusable plastic smartcards will substitute the tickets and minimize down on that waste, officers say.
