This time, it's really for soon!
Almost a decade after the launch of the project, the “north” extension of line 12 – from its current terminus at the Front-Populaire station to Mairie d'Aubervilliers – is finally (almost) ready to welcome travellers.
A course that will not have been a long calm river.
This metro extension project, however eagerly awaited, has accumulated delays and technical incidents.
The new section, 2 km long underground, was initially to be inaugurated in 2017. It will finally be 5 years later… In the spring of 2022.
The date of the "ribbon cutting" has not yet been decided.
But there are only a few weeks left to wait, assures the RATP, stressing that the development of the two new stations created is finished.
Their names (Aimé-Césaire and Mairie d'Aubervilliers) already sit above the access to the stations.
Only a few interior finishes are still to be done.
In order to make users wait until the day of the inauguration – which will undoubtedly be difficult to fix because of the busy schedule of the “officials” in this electoral spring – the RATP has just posted the first photos of the interior of Aimé-Césaire station.
The Mairie d'Aubervilliers station was not entitled to this "preview photo shoot".
But the two future stations share the same aesthetic codes that rely on whiteness and luminosity.
White metal panels replace the earthenware tiles on the walls of the stations.
Metro fans for whom these first photos would not be enough, can go to the other side of the capital, on the extension of line 4 to Bagneux, recently put into service, to get a more precise idea.
The two new stations on line 4 (Barbara and Bagneux-Lucie Aubrac) were indeed "designed" by the same Berlin architecture firm as the two future stations on line 12.
At the 4 sites, the designers replaced the emblematic Guimard earthenware tiles of the historic metro with openwork white metal panels.
Another common point: the same lighting system made of vast luminous circles which seem to float above the corridors will be found in the 4 new stations.
The Aimé-Césaire station, which will have 4 entrances (including one with a lift), should accommodate 15,000 passengers daily.
22,000 daily passengers are expected at the next station.
DR/RATP
Line 12, which currently receives 250,000 passengers per day, should have 37,000 additional daily users after the opening of the new section.
At peak times, the 31 stations on the line (after extension) will be served by a train every 2.10 minutes.