The date has been set. On June 24, one month before the start of the Olympic Games (OG), the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, will inaugurate the double extension – to the north and south – of line 14 of the Paris metropolitan network. This “new backbone of Ile-de-France”, as Valérie Pécresse, president (Les Républicains) of the Region, will connect the new Saint-Denis-Pleyel station to Orly airport. And it already does it, without users.
The RATP received, on Friday May 31, authorization to put the extensions into service and, on Monday, invited elected officials and the press to participate in a “dry run” to the new Orly Airport terminus, located in the town of Paray-Vieille-Poste. “It’s not only the airport, but also Essonne that we serve”, underlines Valérie Pécresse. Until now, the line stopped in the 13e district of Paris, at Olympiades station. Its extension adds seven new stations, making the Grand Paris Express a reality for Ile-de-France residents, a project launched in 2009 by Christian Blanc and former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Ultimately, in 2025, when it will be connected to the new lines 15, 16, 17 and 18, which will double the length of the historic network, line 14 could transport up to one million passengers per day, recalls the president of the region and Ile-de-France Mobilités, the transport organizing authority.
200,000 travelers per day in Saint-Denis-Pleyel
For the Olympics, line 14 will welcome visitors arriving at Paris-Orly airport. “When the Grand Paris Express was launched, this stage was planned for 2027. Everything was accelerated for the Olympics”recalls Stéphane Garreau, project director for RATP, using the favorite phrase of Jean Castex, its CEO: “Line 14 will serve the Olympics, but the Olympics served line 14 well.” The work of the tunnel boring machines was only stopped for a week during the confinements decided to stem the Covid-19 epidemic. The RATP, the Region and the government put pressure on Alstom to deliver the new trainsets on time. Siemens and RATP managed to reconfigure the IT and signaling system so that everything worked.
Read the editorial | Beyond the Olympics, the transport challenge in Ile-de-France
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“There remains only one station to be approved out of the six which will open at the end of June: that of Maison-Blanche. The Safety Commission passes on June 12 », welcomes Stéphane Garreau. The seventh, Villejuif-Gustave-Roussy, under which lines 14 and 15 intersect, will open at the end of 2024. The most impressive, the Saint-Denis-Pleyel station – the only one on the northern extension – is already ready. It will be the largest of the 68 Grand Paris Express stations.
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