Traboule in Lyon
Looking at the map of Lyon, one can see that it has a very organized layout. It has long thin city blocks. At the time Lyon was known for its silk industry and they had silk workers call canuts. A very organized city can also be difficult to navigate sometimes as I found out in New York city since the blocks tend to be very large. This made it difficult to get from one parallel street to another, consequently, this makes it difficult to get from one side of town to another. Lyon suffers from this problem since people would want to get to the river quickly and not have to follow the long streets to get there.
Apartment Block in Lyon Through a Traboule
The solution was the traboule. Basically, traboules are passageways which are made from existing structures. The allow pedestrians from one side of the city block to go through the block without having to walk all the way around the block. This is very convenient for the locals and the canuts. Lyon has several of these traboules all over the city, in particular, the old city. It goes through private property so it is also a show of solidarity with the people who need the passageway. It may not be unrealistic to liken it to a tunnel as some of them tend to look.
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