Urban development
In preparation for Paris 1924, improvements were made to the city’s transport infrastructure.
Getting spectators from A to B was a major undertaking that exercised the minds of the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Paris 1924. The main venue for the Games, the Stade Olympique de Colombes, now known as the Stade Yves-du-Manoir, presented a particular problem.
Located over 10 kilometres outside Paris city centre, in the suburb of Colombes, the stadium had a Games-time capacity of 64,000. The existing transport infrastructure was ill-equipped to meet the demands of transporting thousands of spectators to the venue, which led to the construction of a new road linking central Paris to the stadium. Three railway lines connecting Paris to the stadium were refurbished for the 1924 Games, and a new railway station, the Gare Le Stade, was built. Situated 500 metres from the stadium and still operational today, the station served over 2.2 million people in 2021.
Elsewhere in the city, the riverboat service between the Pont de Saint Denis and the Pont d’Argenteuil was upgraded. The Organising Committee suggested numerous other improvements to the Parisian transport system, though not all of them were implemented due to limited funding.