2008: The Start of Operations for a Metro Station in the Heart of a Swiss City

October 27, 2008

In western Switzerland’s canton (member state) of Vaud, a rapid transit station was officially opened near the Place de la Riponne in the city of Lausanne. The Place de la Riponne is a historically significant grand square at the center of Lausanne, which is Switzerland’s fourth largest city and the capital of Vaud.

The station located in the vicinity of the Place de la Riponne was named after longtime Lausanne resident Maurice Béjart (1927-2007), a French-born dancer and choreographer who achieved fame for developing a popular expressionistic form of ballet. Béjart, who was posthumously awarded Swiss citizenship, founded and ran the internationally renowned ballet company known as Béjart Ballet Laussane.

Riponne-Maurice Béjart station was one of several newly built stations opened as part of the  inaugural segment of Line M2 of the Lausanne Métro, the two-line urban rail transport network operating in that region of Vaud. With Line M1 of the Lausanne Métro classified as a light rail service, this network in its entirety is the only full metro system in all of Switzerland. The opening of Line M2 also resulted in Lausanne replacing Rennes in northwestern France as the smallest city in the world with a full metro system.

Line M2 covers a total of 3.7 miles (5.9 kilometers) between the port and resort of Ouchy, located along Lake Geneva and just south of central Lausanne; and the municipality of Épalinges, which is north of Lausanne. There are 14 stations altogether on this line.

Photo Credit: NAC (licensed under the Creative Commons Attibution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Riponne-Maurice Béjart station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riponne%E2%80%93Maurice_B%C3%A9jart_station

A video featuring this station can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlVczj80Qaw

Additional information on transit services in and around Lausanne is available at https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/ch/vd/lausanne.htm