Berlin has its U-Bahn Museum, Stockholm boasts the Sparvagsmuseet, and London is home to the Transport Museum. Yet, in Paris – a city abundant with museums – there is no institution devoted to the long history of its public transit. Since 2023, the RATP, Paris's public transport operator, has been developing plans to change that. That year, Jean Castex, newly appointed CEO of the public company and a self-declared train enthusiast, proposed creating a museum to celebrate the capital's century-old metro and the many chapters in the history of its trams and buses.
While it will be some time before the "Paris Urban Transport Museum" opens its doors, the project is now taking shape. According to the RATP, which is spearheading the initiative, the opening is planned for 2032, with the Championnet maintenance workshops in the 18th arrondissement chosen as the location, Le Monde has learned from the Paris transport authority.
The four-hectare industrial site has been dedicated to urban transport since the late 19th century, having successively belonged to the Compagnie Générale des Omnibus, the Compagnie du Métropolitain Parisien, and finally the RATP. At the site's center lies a 12,000-square-meter hall built after World War II – the space the company envisions as the museum's memory space. This rare stretch of real estate in central Paris has remained in RATP's possession, even though Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the Paris region's public transport authority, had sought to acquire it, as it has with many other sites such as the nearby Belliard bus depot. However, IDFM told Le Monde that it is not involved in the transport museum, describing it as "a project of Jean Castex."
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