Un Incident Sur Le Tram

Yesterday, after writing my blog post, I remembered a story I wanted to mention of something that happened on the tram ride back home on Sunday. After dinner, I walked to the nearest tram station and took the tram to Homme de Fer (the central tram stop where all the tram lines meet). The estimated waiting time at that station was about 10 minutes, so I decided to spend part of that time walking to the next station that was on the way home. When I got there, I decided that I had walked enough for the day and took a seat at the station. On the bench next to me were 4 or 5 people dressed in the same maroon uniform. I thought to myself, "Oh, I guess they all got out of work." Once the tram arrived and we all entered it, I found out that they were, in fact, still working.

As it turns out, they were the ticket verifiers for the tram. They went to everyone on the tram and scanned their ticket or (in my case) card, making sure that it was valid. I saw one woman fill out some paperwork while a ticket verifier (I don't actually know the official job title) looked on; I presume that the woman did not have a valid ticket. Seeing this process finally answered my question of how Strasbourg enforces the purchase of a ticket for the tram. Otherwise, there are these machines at each station where you can scan your ticket/card to make sure it's valid, but there's nothing stopping you from getting on the tram without a ticket. Now, I know what prevents people from being free riders on the tram; the penalty for getting caught without a ticket is likely much more expensive than the cost of a ticket. With the buses, you have to enter at the front of the bus, where the bus driver can monitor whether anyone doesn't have a ticket/card, so it's a different story. I was amused when our tram got to the next stop, and a person was about to enter the tram, until his friend noticed the ticket verifiers and stopped him from entering; as with most enforcement mechanisms for public transportation, this one can be circumvented, in this case simply through vigilence. But I'm a good foreigner who doesn't mind spending a little to use the fine public transportation system of France. :-) After all, I'm envious of it and would like to see something like it where I live. Given that Strasbourg is over 10 times the size of Salisbury (and is in France, versus the United States), I don't expect that to change any time soon.

I finished uploading and captioning my pictures of the Alsace trip, so here they are:

Alsace

I've got a lot of reading to work on, and I should probably begin writing this week, so I don't expect to do any more blogging until after Paris. Wish me luck, and I wish you the best too.