As a symbol, the president of the Société du Grand Paris (SGP), Thierry Dallard, presented his wishes for 2020 at the Cité de l'Architecture, there where, in April 2009, Nicolas Sarkozy, then president of the Republic, had delivered a founding speech on Greater Paris. “Ten years ago, the Société du Grand Paris did not exist. In ten years, the four new metro lines for which it is the contracting authority will be put into service. So here we are at the halfway point, ”said Thierry Dallard.
READ ALSO> How the Grand Paris Paris Express will change your daily life
Before an assembly more stocked with SGP employees and construction professionals than elected officials (6,800 people from more than 3,700 companies are currently working on 200 supermetro sites, and SGP reached 500 employees in 2019), the speech by Thierry Dallard seems to show that the metro project has left (a little) the political field to gain (a little more) that of technology and industry.
“The year attests to the unprecedented scale of the number of projects undertaken. In 2019, the project took the turn of industrialization, "said Thierry Dallard, citing the 14 tunneling machines that mark out the route of the future metro, on lines 15 South, 14, and 16," at a unique pace in Europe , where we have never known such a concentration of these incredible machines ”.
"2020 will not be outdone," he promised. The first works will begin on the future line 18 between Massy and Saclay (Essonne), new tunnel boring machines will come into action, including six new on line 16 and the first on line 17. Moment symbolic, the welding of the first rail will place "in a few months" on line 15 South.
New trains on display in spring
And the metro will become a little more concrete, with the construction by Alstom of the trains of lines 15, 16 and 17. Thierry Dallard gave an appointment in the spring at the Metro factory, in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) , "Where the public will be able to discover the new metro on a one scale, but also the ground of the stations".
It now remains to launch the markets for the design and construction of the remaining lines (15 East and 15 West), and settle in particular the thorny question of the position of La Défense station. It will then be necessary to overcome the risks and the inevitable vagaries of the work site to meet deadlines (commissioning planned in 2024 for the Olympic Games on lines 14 and 16, and in 2025 for the 15 South).
Newsletter - Essential news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
"Yes, hazards are part of the life of such a project, we have known and we will know others," acknowledged Thierry Dallard. But the boss of the SGP preferred to oppose the "skeptics" who "disserting on the possible delays of the site and still list the difficulties", the "extraordinary" achievement in progress: "to build in twenty years an automatic metro all around Paris" . See you in four years, if all goes well, for the commissioning of the first line.
VIDEO. What will the giant Saint-Denis Pleyel station look like?
