The extension to Saint-Ouen of line 14 of the Paris metro opens Monday

Prime Minister Jean Castex is due to inaugurate Monday afternoon an extension to Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) of line 14 of the Paris metro, intended to relieve the infamous line 13 and to serve booming neighborhoods.

After a short ceremony, this section of 5,8 km between Saint-Lazare and Mairie de Saint-Ouen will be put into service at 16:00 p.m., according to Ile-de-France Mobilités and RATP.

Line 14, which is still sometimes called "Meteor", is the latest addition to the metropolitan network. Inaugurated by Jacques Chirac in October 1998 between Madeleine and Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand, it was extended north to Saint-Lazare in December 2003 and south to Olympiades in June 2007, and was up to now 8,6 km long.

The president of the regional council and of Ile-de-France Mobilités Valérie Pécresse boasts "one of the most modern lines in the world", the only one in the Parisian network accessible to the disabled, too.

The idea of extending this automatic metro line to Saint-Ouen dates back to 2007: it then appeared as the most satisfactory solution to relieve the north of line 13, the two branches of which bow under the load. With the promise of offloading a quarter of its traffic.

The extension of line 14 must also better serve rapidly developing sectors with the new Batignolles district, the Paris Tribunal or the many offices emerging from the ground in Saint-Ouen.

Opened three years late, the new section has four rather monumental stations, that of Porte de Clichy, serving the Tribunal, will not open until January, as well as a depot built to accommodate the latest, longer trains, purchased from Alstom.

Beyond that, work is in full swing for new extensions both to the north, to Saint-Denis Pleyel (Seine-Saint-Denis), and to the south, to Orly airport (Essonne), just in time for the Olympic Games in 2024. With the change in the automation system, still supplied by the German group Siemens.

The line will then be 27 km long, and should carry 1 million passengers per day, against 550.000 before the pandemic.

The Société du Grand Paris (SGP) covered 59% of the 1,4 billion euros spent for the extension to Saint-Ouen, Paris 21% and the Ile-de-France region 14%.

Ile-de-France Mobilités for its part finances rolling stock (620 million for the moment) and covers the operating deficit.