This month of June, on the eve of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) in Paris, is the season of all inaugurations in Ile-de-France transport. This was even launched at the beginning of May, with the extension of the RER E, Eole by its nickname, to the west, to Nanterre-La Folie. Due to train delivery delays – which the manufacturer Alstom disputes – only four trains per hour will run this summer on the new route, but two of the three new stations, those at Porte Maillot and de la Défense, will strengthen the service. competition venues.
It is at Porte Maillot, a former road roundabout spectacularly transformed into a square over which a green space extends, that the Maréchaux tramway has also stopped, since the beginning of April.
The extension of line 14, the “backbone of the Olympic Games”, L’“backbone of Ile-de-France”, as it has already been renamed, will connect, on June 24, the new Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, in the north, to Orly airport, in the south, in forty minutes. For the first time in its history, the second airport in the capital region will have a direct connection with Paris.
An extension planned since 1937
And then there is what is happening to the east of the capital, Thursday June 13. Less spectacular, less publicized, because it does not directly concern the JOP and the construction site suffered fewer hazards, the event will not have the honors of the Elysée. The extension of line 11 from Mairie-des-Lilas to Rosny-Bois-Perrier, which crosses Romainville, Noisy-le-Sec, Montreuil, is no less strategic, and is even a ” revolution “, assures the director of the line, Guillaume Karakouzian, for the inhabitants of the territory it serves, Seine-Saint-Denis. The department, it should be remembered, the most populous in Ile-de-France after Paris, still has towns and very dense neighborhoods, hospitals, as was the case for André-Grégoire in Montreuil, accessible only by bus or car.
This extension is the second most ambitious RATP project in recent years: 1.3 billion euros for infrastructure alone, to which must be added 380 million for the trains, financed by Ile-de-France Mobilités. This push towards the suburbs has been planned – at least as far as Romainville – since 1937, recalled the project director, Pierre Florent, at the end of May, during a visit organized by the authority. On this date, line 11 stopped at Mairie-des-Lilas. The Second World War broke out. It took more than sixty years for new studies to be launched in 2009.
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