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Comment by lqet | Hacker News Reader

Why did you include metro stations in your study? The original quote only included train stations. The metro originally largely replaced a tram network, so the metro station density in Paris is higher than for other underground systems. I think it is very hard to find kebap shops in Paris that are not within 500 m of a metro station. This kind of dilutes the significance of your study, because I never really noticed that metro stations had a negative impact on their surrounding area (the opposite, really).

I think your study would have been much more interesting (but not that algorithmically challenging...) if you only included the large train stations in Paris.

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I would second this. In Paris, but I find it to be true in most European city, the area surrounding train station is usually not very nice. It is usually surrounded by cheap hotel for 1-night traveler, overpriced fast food (hence the initial theory) and social housing / cheap building (a lot of people don't want to live next to a train station due to the nuisance, so poor people often get stuck there).

On the other hand, metro station are pretty much anywhere, and they tend to have the opposite effect. Having a metro station close by is very practical and doesn't generate as much nuisance since it is underground and pretty well hidden.

I am almost sure the data will look very different if you only look for train station.

This is such a dystopian phenomenon, I'm far from an expert but I guess it's a matter of city planning?

It's very hard to avoid this. It's mostly a combination of railway noise, throughput of a large number of people who are only travelling through, opportunities for pickpockets and beggars, and historically of soot and air pollution by steam engines, which makes these areas unattractive to live in.

And it is not for lack of trying. City planners since at least the 1850ies have been trying to improve the areas surrounding large train stations.

It's also a very large building or roofed space, where it's more difficult than elsewhere to accuse homeless etc of loitering.

It is difficult to avoid, as metro passengers are mainly residents or workers in nearby premises. Station halls are also much bigger and attract the marginalised who want to shelter from the elements.

You would need to further filter for the largest railway stations, perhaps by number of platforms ≥ 6 or 8, otherwise you will include many urban and suburban stations that serve essentially the same purpose as metro stations.

There are not a lot of stations that a Parisian dweller would consider to be a "railway station" AND "inside Paris".

I'd say mostly Montparnasse, Gare de Lyon, Gare de l'Est, Gare du Nord, and Austerlitz.

RER, Transilien, Metro and Tramway stations would not count as "train stations" in the eyes of a Parisian/French person, and places outside of the Périphérique (the ring road that follows the old defensive "Thier walls" of the city) would not count as "Paris" for this kind of conversation.

For those wondering the original image was speaking of "Gare" which are well-defined: https://www.sncf-connect.com/gares/paris

And Saint-Lazare, the third busiest train station in France based on the number of daily travellers, and the oldest in Paris.

Ah you're right! I don't know why I forgot Saint-Lazare.

I checked the link in the sibling comment[0] and just found out that "Gare Paris Bercy Bourgogne - Pays d'Auvergne" is a thing that exists. Never heard of it before.

So all in all, from a Frenchperson's perspective there are 7 "gares" (train stations) in Paris.

[0] https://www.sncf-connect.com/gares/paris

I’d go with if it isn’t Gare «something» then it doesn’t count.

As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious, even perplexing, depending on which train systems one is accustomed with. Some systems just don't have it, in manners that if said in Paris terms it might be train to Lyon arriving next to Line 6 Westbound.

It doesn't need to be a hard distinction. I'm sure everyone can see the difference of a building with multiple platforms and usually shops and other things targetting non-locally-resident travellers and your average metro stop with has two platforms (one for each direction) and not much more than an entrance and exit. Where exactly you draw the line doesn't really matter.

That. That kind of distinction isn't universal. Some places just have a fused metro-plus-train system, in which you can slip in a $1 metro ticket, ride along changing metro trains for over a day across >1500km/1000mi, and pay outstanding fee at the exit, like on Japanese JR networks and metro trains interoperating with it.

I'm not saying which modes of thinking are more rational or superior or anything of that sort, just that the seemingly instinctive distinction you have described is not necessarily so to everybody.

There is usually a difference between a "local network" to travel within a metropolitan area and "intercity" train to go from one big city to another.

That is what matters here.

Train has a train station (with paid toilets now unfortunately in France) and connects to other parts of the country. Metro is a subway and is within city boundaries

>As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious

Do you know the difference between "train" and "subway", because "the metro" is just a subway, just like in NYC or commonly found elsewhere in almost any large city.

Yeah, as a piece of knowledge, and what I've been saying is it's European thing.

I can hop onto Tokaido Main southbound at Tokyo with $1 ticket and get off at same Tokaido Main platform at Kyoto, or vice versa, or same for Ueno to snowy Aomori through Tohoku Main, if I didn't mind paying $60 outstanding fee and a 12-hour 5 train change long "metro" experience and "oh come on" look at the gate. By all definitions the Tokaido or Tohoku line are a "metro" rail, and uses some of same models of rolling stocks(cars) as literal subway services. I can technically do that because there's no hard distinctions between metro and train in the system I'm familiar with but the rails are rails and rails go everywhere.

European cities tend not to have that, and instead have often Y shaped branches off international long-distance rail networks that comes in and backs out of a "City Central" station, where it connects to local train services like trams and subways. This is due to Europe long having concept of city boundaries where city-ness of cities roll off sharp and somewhat abruptly ends, and many cities have not expanded enough to fuse together like late-game Civ maps.

Yes, I am aware, what I'm saying is that not everyone knows and you have to say it. You can't say, like, the author's stupid to not be aware of obvious distinction.

I thought to include metro stations mostly because of the nature of the original French subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/MetroFrance/comments/1hcifh1/pas_vu...). It perhaps doesn't make much sense in hindsight, but I also filtered out metro stations later on in the post and it didn't change much.

I'm starting work on a follow-up which will sample more cities, though I still plan to use walking distances w network analysis for now.

Hey, Not sure what you were left with once you removed metro stations but in the context of the original image the "gare" would be: https://www.sncf-connect.com/gares/paris .

And people would probably often forget Paris Bercy ^^.

Seconded. Train stations are important attractors for some kinds of people and some kinds of eating place, metro stations (particularly relatively small and uniformly distributed ones, as is the case in Paris) are only able to give a restaurant an easily reachable position, only for metro travellers, compared to others in the neighbourhood. Different effects, good for a different study.

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