Why Paris is Doubling the Size of its Metro

this is the kind of project that only really comes along once in a century the Grand Paris Express it's Europe's largest infrastructure scheme a $37 billion rail line carved out beneath the French capital and stretching over 200 km the numbers are eyering there'll be 68 new stations four brand new automatic Metro routes the expansion of two existing lines on the network 3 million passengers transported every day and journey times cut by as much as half an hour the piesta resistance is a mammoth 76 km ring that will connect the city's outer suburbs for the first time at its biggest Peak to date 100 m long tunnel boring machines were pushing forward by 12 M A Day the project is immense in every sense of that word and is about to radically transform Paris Paris is a city of Revolution a City built on change it's safe to say that France's Capital has gone through more than its fair share of historic fundamental Transformations over the centuries between 1853 and 1870 Napoleon thei famously demolished the city's medieval neighborhoods to make way for the grand boulevards we know and love today this new Railway is kind of On a par with that welcome to the next iteration of Paris so right now paris's Metro only really serves the city's very center and that's a problem Paris isn't just its 20 hour on desmont it's a sprawling Mega City that's home to an estimated 7.2 million people now public transport especially the Metro service has the ability to unlock the potential of disconnected areas and create new destinations in much the same way that London did with its famous tube and like China is doing now with multiple lines uniting areas around cities like Shanghai and Beijing the most impressive feature of paris's rail overhaul directly addresses this centrality line 15 is a 76 km circular route that will connect the Southern and Eastern suburbs with s in the North and the business district at L France in the west it's essentially a giant Loop that goes around the outskirts of the city instead of only being able to travel in and out of the middle you'll soon be able to Journey between the suburbs too and that's expected to boost regeneration and the economy Paris will transform from a city with one Center to a city with multiple centers a multi-polar metropolis democratization through infrastructure a revolution through trains plans for this Mega development stretch way back to 2007 but construction of the new lines began in June 2015 and is being carried out in several phases right up to 2030 fully automated driverless trains will run on the new network at an average speed of 60 km an hour nearly double that of the current Paris Metro a move that could go a long way to solving the driver shortages experienced on some lines now an incredible 75% of the network is going to run underground in two lane subway tunnels and that's meant an immense tunnel boring operation out of sight up to 16 M beneath the feet of parisians 100 m long tunnel boring machines are creating tunnels at a rate of 10 to 12 m a day which is about 3 km a year to get the tbms to their boring depth they're first lowered in pieces down shafts along the route of the tunnel once on site these massive machines are then fully assembled directly below the streets of Paris the tbms then excavate supports and line the tunnels with concrete as they move forward leaving behind a safely completed tunnel ready for the mechanical electrical and computer systems to be installed when construction works first peaked in 2020 work on all four lines plus the line 14 extensions was all taking place simultaneously while the Metro tunnels of the early 1900s sat just 10 m or so below ground the tunnels for the Grand Paris Express sit 30 to 40 m beneath the city avoiding more than 100 years worth of underground utility infrastructure the new stations add yet another level of complexity first a reinforced waterproof wall is built around the roughly 9,000 s m sights that creates a 60 M Dropbox for work to take place before excavation 60% of the civil engineering work for the stations is then completed before the giant tbms worm their way to the site and eat through the solid rock following the excavation internal structures are then built including multiple levels mezzanines platforms and a roof slab the parts of the station you actually experience as a [Music] passenger [Music] as you can probably imagine it's pretty crucial for every part of this enormous operation to run cohesively and on time and software from today's video sponsor Trimble has been an essential part of making that happen field surveys which monitor construction progress and provide reference points to guide the team were conducted using Trimble access software Trimble s 7even total stations and the Trimble tsc7 controller the tunnels module for Trimble access software includes a solution specifically designed for automatically measuring and analyzing the various points on the inside of the tunnel rings that kind of data is essential to the teams building this project Trimble has already helped ensure faster timelines and richer data and its Tech is being deployed at several of the Grand Paris Express sites [Music] for [Music] today the Mega project stands more than 30% complete while initial hopes had this entire thing wrapping up before the 2024 Olympics a more realistic aim has since been adopted now just the first bit which includes the extension to line 14 is going to be open in time for the games helping ease the burden of the anticipated 16 million tourists descending on Paris for the Olympics the past few years have seen Paris go to extraordinary pains to revitalize itself as one of Europe's Most sustainable cities and the new Metro plays into the messaging for the 2024 games extremely well the green games for a Greener City by 2030 Paris aims to be 50% green spaces an enormous leap from the 99.5% it currently has and the French government has set itself the goal of cutting carbon emissions by 27.6 million tons by 2050 it's doing that in part by returning roads to the people and taking cars off the streets the Grand Paris Express will help remove the need for 150,000 Vehicles gradually helping the city cut its carbon Footprints in time with great SES of this urban area becoming reachable on public transports the government is hoping the benefits of a cheap and efficient Metro will far outweigh the costly and frustrating process of driving through the city in rush hour Paris is a city of revolutions and this Railway is its next revolutionary act it's more than just a metro line it's an enormous once in a century infrastructure Mega project that's using the power of construction to open up the French Capital like never before this video was made possible by Trimble you can learn more about this and the other topics on our Channel over on the world's best construction podcast available now wherever you get your podcast and as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to dig deeper into the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to the [Music] b1m

Channel: The B1M

Views: 391,196

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, Paris, grand Paris express, europe, infrastructure, megaproject, Saint-Denis, tbm, tunnel boring machine, metro, train, rail, railway, subway, Trimble, france, French, Paris metro, olympics, Paris 2024

Id: E9oDwTNUXP0

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024