A little before 12:30 p.m., the first travelers were able to discover the new Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, just inaugurated by President Emmanuel Macron, as well as seven new stations on line 14 between Olympiades and Orly airport. “These new stations are really wow! I had seen pictures, but it’s crazy to see it in real life,” enthuses Louis, who describes himself as “a metro fanatic,” and who plans to spend the day visiting them one by one. “It’s a really nice station for locals. We were the ones who paid for all that,” smiles Hamza, who arrived from Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine).
Like him, Mickaël, 18, is frantically taking photos of the immense skylight of the new “Châtelet” in northern Paris, where four lines of the Grand Paris Express will eventually arrive (14, 15, 16 and 17). The complex designed by architect Kengo Kuma is buried 28 meters deep. Managed by Keolis, it has nine levels, 56 escalators and 18 elevators. “The volumes are incredible! A station this deep with natural light was quite a challenge,” comments this preparatory class student. Mickaël left from Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand (Paris, 13th century) and boarded one of the very first shuttles serving the new northern terminus of the automatic line.
Now, the journey from Saint-Denis to Orly airport takes just 40 minutes. Trains pass approximately every two minutes during peak hours. Travelers without Navigo must pay an additional 10.30 euros to depart or arrive from the airport.
Lojine is still surprised. “I live in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, and it was this morning that I saw that the line now went to Saint-Denis. It’s beautiful, it’s clean! I have family here. Before, it was the 13 or the RER B to come see them, that didn’t really make you want to… Now I’ll come more often.”
Macron, Castex, Pécresse and Sarkozy cut the ribbon
A little earlier, on the main square of the Dionysian station, hundreds of guests attended the ribbon cutting. On the platform, President Emmanuel Macron was accompanied by Jean Castex, former Prime Minister and CEO of the RATP, Valérie Pécresse, president of the Region, and Nicolas Sarkozy, under whose presidency the Grand Paris Express was put on rails.
The extension of line 14 is a 2.8 billion euro project, financed by the Société des Grands Projets (SGP), without forgetting 1.15 billion provided by Île-de-France Mobilités to purchase 72 MP14 trainsets of 120 meters long.
