The transport revolution in the Pays de Gex

At the beginning of January we decided to really try to no longer take the car to work. Better for us - even if it is only a shortish walk to the bus stop it is still more than the 10 paces to the car - better for the environment. Since timetable changes in December there are now far more F buses and one in two of them goes up to Gex. The real change is the new bus, the Y which comes in to Geneva from Thoiry in France and then goes past the airport and out to Ferney. We can get to the airport and also on to other parts of the Genevan tram and public transport system in more varied ways. It is really changing things. The bad weather conditions didn't help the start of the new timetable and the Y is still having problems sticking to its timetable, it is still a brilliant improvement. A new P bus should also be starting soon, linking people in Prévessin up to the trams in Meyrin.
As a result we have not used the car at all since January 2. So now the big question, should we buy a new car (our old VW Golf has just come of age this month and is 18 years old) or should we try to organise our lives differently and just hire a car when we need one? Hmmm ... Can't change the world unless we try to change ourselves.
The bad weather also led to all kinds of buses from Lausanne and elsewhere being used on the Genevan TPG. Dr B is more than a bit of a transport spotter and gets quite excited about the different kinds of buses available. I just get cross that the order for the new F buses was delayed by our anti public transport regional council so we have rather a hotchpoth of buses at the moment, many of which seem to come from Paris. The local transport revolution in the Pays de Gex still doesn't seem to have tackled the major reason for delays though which would be to get buses which have doors that open and close properly!
You can keep up to date with all kinds of information you never knew you didn't want to know about public transport in Geneva on the Site non officiel des TPG.
This is all part of cross border cooperation within something called the PACA (périmètre d'aménagement coordonné d'agglomération!!) which is holding a public meeting on February 18 to look at studies about how things are likely to evolve in some of the Pays de Gex and the neighbouring municipalities in Switzerland. There are similar studies underway for the Geneva and neighbouring France area. Find out more here.