That Arden station facade is absolutely huge. But why? Why spend so much money on such a large facility when the Paris metro gets by fine with only using this much space. It just feels like it’s more inconvenient for the users since they have to walk an extra couple of hundred metres for no good reason. And it looks unnecessarily expensive both in building costs and real estate when a smaller entrance would do just fine.

The main point is to disentangle those lines from the city loop. That way more services can be run and since the lines will be independent a problem on one line won’t bring down the entire network any more.

I’m literally one of those people who you say is vanishingly small.

It’s not even a “the world is bad and I don’t want to subject my child to that” kind of decision. It’s more like a series of thoughts over the years: “is this the right time to have a kid?” and it’s never a good time.