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Opening date for long-delayed extension of Paris Metro line

The Local France
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Opening date for long-delayed extension of Paris Metro line
A tunnel boring machine on a line 14 building site. Photo: AFP

There will soon be an alternative to Paris' crowded Metro line 13, with the extension of another line into the northern part of the city.

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The launch date of the extension of Metro line 14 has been postponed twice but this time it's official (apparently).

Valérie Pécresse, president of the regional Île-de-France council, has announced the opening of Metro line 14’s new section for Thursday, December 17th.

The testing of the line is still underway.

"Tomorrow, I will be on line 13 to do the inaugural trips of the first trains on line 14", Valérie Pécresse told French television on Sunday.

 

Line 14’s current terminus is Saint Lazare, a train station in the North-West of Paris.

The extension will continue to Porte de Saint Ouen, with 4 new stations: Pont Cardinet, Porte de Clichy, Saint Ouen and Mairie de Saint Ouen. 

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The project has encountered a few obstacles. There had been an announcement about the opening of the extension for 2017, which had then been postponed to 2019 then 2020 due to various problems.This year, the new section of the line was supposed to open in September.

But the construction work has been interrupted by the lockdown, and later on, by new health rules on the construction sites.

The addition of 4 new stations on line 14 should allow to reduce traffic on 25 percent on line 13. This line is taken by 610,000 passengers every day, which makes it the ‘’most busy line in Île-de-France’’, as Valérie Pécresse said in her announcement on television.

It is part of an ongoing project to extend Metro lines out into Paris' inner suburbs and make them more connected to the city.

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