aixcentric

Taking advantage of Monday’s offer of free rides, we went for a jaunt round town on the new all-electric Aixpress.

My verdict?

First thoughts were kudos to Aix for launching this complex piece of urban planning and technology on the day they said they would.  And the 600-place underground carpark at Jas de Bouffan was opened as well, bang on time.  Traffic and parking are major headaches in towns worldwide: Aix has really grasped the nettle by providing this 7.2km route with high frequency and services running until late at night, Sundays too.

My only disappointment was the bus itself which seemed rather cramped. It seats 22, but according to the publicity takes 78 in total.  There were people standing on both buses we took, but nothing like 56.  I can’t imagine what this would have been like.  After using the normal Aix buses, I also found this somewhat claustrophobic in that the driver’s seat was backed on to a floor-to-ceiling opaque partition which meant that passengers looking forward only have a 50% view.  Possibly it was made worse by the fact that someone was standing talking to the driver each time, which meant we couldn’t see much at all.

The buses run every 7 minutes though so they hopefully won’t get too packed?  The a/c was certainly very efficient…a blessing on a sweltering hot day!

The streets of Aix have been massively enhanced.  Areas that were a clutter of parked cars, kerbs and dodgy paving stones are now cleared, expensively paved, and with widened pavements and cycle tracks.  New trees line the roadways, and new urban furniture has been installed.  Most stops have more seating, wooden-topped concrete blocks to perch on while waiting for the next Aixpress.  Waiting times will be signalled at stops once the network is finalised.

If you want to know more about this new 100 million euro development, here you go: dossier_bhns-2