“Three to eight months late”. For the moment, this is the official assessment of the health crisis drawn by the Société du Grand Paris (SGP) on the site it is leading, that of the Grand Paris Express. The automatic supermetro around Paris (four lines, 200 km, 68 stations) is under construction. This 35 billion euro “construction site of the century” saw the launch, in 2020, of around fifteen tunnel boring machines, bringing the number of these giant digging machines to 20 the soil of Ile-de-France, a figure unheard of in Europe.
And it’s not over. In 2021, the SGP will accelerate in an attempt to make up for part of the delay linked to the crisis. Adjustments in the dates of commissioning of this long-awaited metro could be announced during the year, after the postponement, already, of the “Olympic sections” of lines 16 and 17 beyond the deadline of the 2024 Olympics.
In the meantime, here is the current schedule and the – many – works planned, line by line. The SGP promises to organize again festive events and visits to these sites, “if the sanitary situation allows it”.
Line 14 Sud Olympiades – Orly. Commissioning scheduled for 2024. The excavation of this 14 km section under the project management of the RATP will be completed this year. Two out of three tunnel boring machines have finished their journey, and the last, Allison, will arrive in Paris in a few days at the Maison-Blanche station. The diaphragm walls (i.e. the walls) of this station are being poured, and the connection with the station of line 7 will also be dug this year. The other stations, in particular that of Orly, will enter the development phase and work on the tracks will begin from the metro maintenance and storage site in Morangis (Essonne), which is now out of the ground. The opening in 2024 is possible, except for Villejuif Gustave-Roussy station, because line 15 which also passes there will not be completed.
Line 14 North Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen – Saint-Denis-Pleyel. Commissioning scheduled for 2024. The extension from Saint-Lazare to Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen opened by the RATP since December 14, there is only the Porte-de-Clichy station to open (end of January), but especially the 800 meters from Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen to Saint-Denis-Pleyel to be completed by the SGP by 2024. The Valérie tunnel boring machine which is digging this gallery left last May and will cross the giant Pleyel station in 2021 , whose complex construction of the walls will continue in 2021. The objective is for it to accommodate line 14 for the 2024 Olympics.
Line 15 South Pont-de-Sèvres – Noisy-Champs. Commissioning 2025. This will be the big news for 2021: the 33 km of tunnels should be completed on this section! This end of the “civil engineering” stage will be marked by the release of the last Laurence tunnel boring machine, which left Boulogne and expected at the end of the year in the Fort-d’Issy-Vanves-Clamart station. The laying of the first rails, started in 2020 near Noisy-Champs, will continue on other sections. The stations will begin to be fitted out, but they are not all at the same level. If the shell of Fort-d’Issy-Vanves-Clamart has been completed, the deepest, at Saint-Maur Créteil, has not yet reached its bottom at 51 meters deep! In 2021, we will have to dig a little further …
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Line 16 Saint-Denis-Pleyel – Noisy-Champs. It has been official since last summer, the first section of this suburban line which should relieve the RER B will not be ready for the 2024 Olympics, although it serves the athletes’ village or the Olympic sites at Le Bourget. See you no doubt in 2025. In the meantime, in 2021, in addition to the continuation of the excavation started last year by 6 tunnel boring machines, this line will welcome its first rails in Seine-Saint-Denis, between the Aulnay Exploitation Center and Le Blanc-Mesnil (section dug by the Armelle tunnel boring machine), at the end of the year. Finally, in 2021, the last section of the 16, between Clichy-Montfermeil and Noisy-Champs (scheduled for 2030) will pass a decisive administrative step, with the award of the last civil engineering contract for the Chelles station, and the tunnel. from Chelles to Noisy-Champs. All line 16 will then be under construction.
Line 17 Saint-Denis-Pleyel – Le Mesnil-Amelot. The first section of this line being common to line 16 from Pleyel to Le Bourget, it will also be delivered in 2025. Otherwise, the SGP is holding up, despite the political and legal uncertainties linked to the service to Roissy and the Triangle de Gonesse . “The Florence tunnel boring machine will start at the very beginning of the year from the Flandre well in Bonneuil-en-France towards the future Le-Bourget-Airport station”, assures the SGP. The rest of the work, in particular between Le Bourget and Villepinte via the Triangle de Gonesse, could resume after a year of suspension linked to an appeal by opponents to this station for the moment in the middle of the fields, in the absence of a project for urbanization since the abandonment of EuropaCity.
Line 18 Orly-Versailles Chantiers. Commissioned in two stages, in 2027 to Saclay, then 2030 to Versailles. Things will accelerate between Palaiseau and Orly. The first two tunnel boring machines of line 18 should indeed leave at the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022, one from the Maréchal Leclerc shaft in Massy to Orly Airport station, the other from the Camille-Claudel structure in Palaiseau to the Maréchal-Leclerc well in Massy, indicates the SGP. The metro of this line (lighter and less capacity than the other lines of Grand Paris) will also be unveiled with the award of the rolling stock contract. The rest of the line should be partly grounded in the fields of Saclay and still arouses opposition. The works are not for now, even if Vinci has just obtained the contract for the viaduct between Palaiseau and Saclay.
Line 15 East Pleyel-Champigny and 15 West Pleyel-Pont-de-Sèvres. The bypass will not be completed before 2030. No work planned for 2021, but the continuation of consultations with construction giants to build these lines. The contracts will be awarded in four large lots in 2023, the date of the start of works.
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