Paris Public Transportation

It depends — which days of the week does your visit encompass?

A Friday through Tuesday. I guess my first question is whether or not that stop is within zone 3, I've seen some maps that confused me a bit. Also, I am mobility challenged, I know that I had once seen a website where I could view whether or not the elevators were working at various stations on the B line, and I can't seem to find it again. Does anyone know where I can see that and bookmark it? Does the Paris Visite travel pass make sense, or is it overkill. We've been to Paris once before, but our hotel then was between the Opera and the Louvre, and I had far more mobility. Our plans this time are to move slower, see less but still enjoy the visit thoroughly.

I. Arcueil-Cachan is in zone 3. However, zones are only important when purchasing passes, with one exception: the ticket t+ on the RER is only valid for travel within zone 1. Otherwise, zones only apply to pass purchases.

Traveling from Arcueil-Cachan to Paris on the RER requires either a zone 1-3 pass, or tickets origine-destination at 3.10€ each, 10 at 24.90€. If you take a city bus from Arcueil-Cachan, bus 187 to Porte d´Orléans for example, you may use a ticket t+ (2.10€), which includes connections to any other city bus going into Paris.

II. Referencing your mobility issues, RER elevators which are out of service at any given time are listed here:

https://me-deplacer.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/ascenseurs

III. The Paris Visite will meet your requirements. Is it overkill? Perhaps but it is simplicity: 3 day, zone 1-3 costs 30.10€, the 5 day is 43.30€. There is no 4 day Paris Visite option.

The only other transportation option would be day passes, Navigo Jour, the zone 1-3 costs 11.30€, 3 of which will cost more than a 3 day, zone 1-3 Paris Visite.

Your situation is probably one of the few where Paris Visite pass makes the most sense! Either 3 day + single RER tickets for the arrival/departure day, or 5 day. I'd "splurge" for the 5-day pass, personally, unless arrival/departure days are really just about going from/to Gare du Nord.

You have two choices:
Paris Visite for 5 days
Getting Carnet of RER B tickets from Arcuell to Paris. By buying ten at a time you get a discount. Then for travel within Paris you get a Navigo Easy and load it with another Carnet of ten tickets at a discount for local travel. On the English pages of the machines where you get the tickets, the carnet will be called a booklet of ten. On your initial trip into the city each day that RER ticket will take you wherever in the city you want to go and again from wherever in the city you are back to your home base. but during the day if you don't have a pass, you will need local t+ tickets (the ones on the Navigo Easy) to get around.

With mobility challenges it is an odd choice to place yourself so far out of Paris. The RER stations should have elevators and escalators. Metros mostly do not and involve lots of steep stairs up and down, sometimes many flights in one trip at each end. Thus you may want to use buses to get around in Paris.

Thank you all for your input, I truly appreciate it. Of course, it would have been much nicer to be within walking distance of the Louvre as we were the first time, but economics for this trip required finding less expensive accommodations. We also had to consider accessibility when we looked at accommodations, and that eliminated a lot of options.
Thank you so much for reminding me of issues with metro stations. In our previous trip we never took the metro in Paris, but we did in London. For a resident of the US Midwest, with almost no public transportation options, the number of steps at some stops were daunting, even 7 or 8 years ago.

Thank you again for your time and advice.

I think that once you get into Paris, you consider getting around the city by bus. There are a lot of bus lines, and they cover the city quite well, and you only have a couple of steps to get in and out of the bus (so you do not have to depend upon a metro elevator working when you need it). Tickets for the metro are valid for the Paris buses. Peter

I agree with Peter. The buses are the best choice for your situation. Get the CityMapper app for your phone (free) and it will help you navigate the bus lines. We were in Paris in Feb and loved the buses, you will too.
Paulette

I was recently in Paris for 2 weeks and decided it was time I used the busses there. I had been many times before but would stick to the Metro. I am now a bus aficionado - I adore them. You see so much and once you figure out how they work it is so easy. I purchased a Navigo Easy card (not the kind where you need to provide a photo) at my local Metro station that worked on the buses and Metro. Easy to top up in the Metro and very convenient.

Buses were HOT a few weeks ago. Most were not air-conditioned. Those in the tourist core of the city that did have air were outmatched by the heat and crowd of passengers. Still, buses were GREAT in the morning and on less crowded routes, away from the Seine.