“Thank you, Games!” » Taking stock, Monday March 25, of the progress of work for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Valérie Pécresse, president of the Ile-de-France region and of the transport organizing authority, Ile-de-France Mobilités, wanted to give another tone to the efforts made to get everything ready.
Rather than grumbling about the delays, the inconvenience caused by the work or the future difficulties in getting around, it wants to highlight the acceleration of numerous projects that this non-negotiable deadline has caused. She even launched the hashtag #mercilesjeux on social networks. Ile-de-France transport companies agreed, revealing, throughout the week, the progress of several major projects essential to the proper functioning of the metro and RER lines, and to the reception of 7 million spectators this summer.
First stop in Morangis (Essonne), very close to the take-off runways of Orly airport, south of Paris. This is where the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) has installed one of the two train maintenance centers for line 14, which, from the end of June, will connect the airport to the Saint-Denis station. Pleyel. Today, the 14 runs between Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen and Olympiades stations. The CEO of RATP, Jean Castex, showed Mme Enjoy this brand new equipment, with six elevated tracks for working on metro trains.
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It will operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, in parallel with the center of Saint-Ouen, north of the capital. Morangis has already started to receive the new MP14 trainsets delivered by Alstom and financed by the region – a contract worth 500 million euros. Thirty-five are on the road today, more than fifty will be on the road at the time of the Games, and seventy-two eventually.
“Collective mobilization”
A year ago, Alstom’s delays raised the threat that there would not be enough cars to extend the line at both ends. “This could also have delayed the extension of line 11 to the east, from Mairie-des-Lilas to Rosny-Bois-Perrier to the north, which uses the same rolling stock, sighs Valérie Pécresse. That was out of the question. » Under pressure from the Games deadline, Alstom finally opened a second production line, in Valenciennes (North).
In the metro tunnel too, companies are working hard. The Orly station has just been approved by the safety commission. Several traffic interruptions are still scheduled, so that the southern route of the automatic metro can be safely connected to the rest of the stations. But the line is on track to be operational in June. “The Games create a collective mobilization of the companies working on this project: no one wants to be the ugly duckling”welcomes Stéphane Garreau, the project manager at the RATP. Without the Olympic horizon, the line would probably not have been ready for several months, concedes Mr. Castex.
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