We borrow it every day, and like to grumble when it breaks down. Every day, almost half a million people use lines A and B of the Tisséo metro (including buses). But do you know all the secrets of the Toulouse metro? We tell you.
The ghost station on line B
Unless you’re looking for it, there’s a very good chance you’ve never even spotted its existence and its condemned door, mysteriously emerging from the ground in the middle of Impasse de la Charbonnière, just behind the Rectorat de l’Académie de Toulouse.
This abandoned entrance should have welcomed travelers to the (ghostly) Niel station. Visible from the metro trains (passing from one stop to the next) and useful for firefighter access, the Niel station should have been located on line B between the Empalot and Saint-Agne – SNCF stations.
A far more artistic metro than it seems
In addition to the common station design (white walls, grey ceilings, pink granite entrances), Tisséo has decided to bring art to the metro by decorating each station with a permanent work of art. As a result, 39 works of art can be seen from stop to stop in the 38 stations of the Toulouse metro. At Jolimont, for example, fragments of vanished images resembling stained-glass windows populate the station.
At Argoulets, a hanging garden seems to float ten metres above the ground, while at François Verdier, an immense tree with multiple mouldings and engravings takes refuge under the staircase. But Barrière-de-Paris is undoubtedly the most impressive: its gigantic steel rods reach a height of 25 metres!
Jean Jaurès, top of the list of busiest stations
No, the busiest station on the Toulouse network isn’t Marengo SNCF, nor Capitole (depending on tourism, you’d think). However, the station with the highest number of visitors is no further away, since it was Jean Jaurès (lines A and B) that Tisséo recorded the highest ridership in 2018. With 10,052,286 visitors per year on line A and 11,173,858 on line B, the Jean Jaurès transfer station totaled no less than 21 million users in 2018!
By contrast, the Fontaine-Lestang (line A) and Saouzelong (line B) stations dropped to the bottom of the rankings (only 458,783 visitors for the former and 1,008,466 for the latter). The following year, in 2019, the Toulouse metro reached its all-time ridership record with 118.2 million passengers.
What do the pictograms associated with each station mean?
Have you ever noticed the pictograms drawn on the entrance signs to each metro station? They help cognitively impaired users find their way around the network. These visual identifiers, the first of their kind in France, focus on the history of each station: at Esquirol (“squirrel” in Occitan), a squirrel greets visitors at the station entrances.
There’s also a goose at Patte d’Oie, a rose at Roseraie, a cow at La Vache, a crown at Reynerie, a singer’s microphone at Minimes Claude Nougaro and a wolf at Empalot (for the Champ du Loup district).
The Toulouse metro also speaks Occitan
Anyone who has ever taken the metro in Toulouse will have noticed! For tourists, however, the use of our beloved Occitan language every time they arrive at a station can be quite jarring ! Since 2011, the names of metro stations have been announced in Occitan by Muriel Batbie Castell, a solo singer and voice-over artist in our local dialect. The strong heritage of Occitan culture can thus be heard from station to station, as the announcements are made, for a journey as close as possible to the city’s history. “Estacion venenta, Capitoli!