«This is a dream come true»: with these words begins the ribbon-cutting in Piazza San Babila of the new M4 station, which together with the Tricolore line extends the Blue Line by two more stops, shortening the distance between Linate airport and the city center just a 12-minute underground journey. Mayor Beppe Sala together with the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini and the managing director of Webuild Pietro Salini inaugurated the new Blu stop this morning in a “refurbished” and completely pedestrianized square.
Sala: «The Milanese have invested in patience»
«Connecting our city aiport with the heart of the city, the “center-center”, today is something that seems obvious, but I’ve spent years in which it wasn’t so obvious, nor was staying at Linate. In less than a quarter of an hour you can get from Linate to here and vice versa», continued Sala. Who underlined how the subways have «two difficulties in building: long times and being very expensive, but once you have them, you transform the city. And at least this is something that all the Milanese agree on». The M4, despite its name, is the fifth line of the Milanese subway, which the city has been hearing about for twenty years (the project dates back to 2005), and which was to be inaugurated in 2015. «The Milanese invest in the subways: the first line in ’64 was made thanks to a loan from the citizenry». In this case, with the M4, «they invested in patience and seriousness, because the work was long and marred by Covid, by the increase in costs and by the discovery of archaeological finds. However, this must convince us to move forward,” the mayor underlined.
Next target: the M6
Then the point on the metropolitan system as a whole, starting from the completion of the Blue Line, which will see the other 13 stops up to San Cristoforo open all together by the end of 2024, thus uniting the West and East of the city: «When I having become mayor we were 10% of the work, today we are in fact 90%, even if there is still a year to complete everything. By next year we will open the rest of the line: it means 15 kilometers and 21 stops. The Milanese subway system is not completed: I believe it will be completed with the last subway needed, the M6». Sala also recalled how the times required for the construction of the work were “long” and how this refers to the “role of politics and how politicians should understand their job”. And turning to Salvini: “You are the sixth minister of infrastructure since I have been mayor”.
The Milanese and construction sites
Q&A. Taking the floor, Minister Salvini seized the opportunity for a reminder of the stability of the current government: “I count that you will only see one Minister of Infrastructure in the next five years, Beppe ..!”. Salvini recalled the construction sites open at the moment throughout the country, but “when you return to Milan it is always a different emotion – he said -. I remember Piazza San Babila as it was and I thank the many Milanese who have lived with the construction sites for years», said Salvini with reference to the long works in De Amicis and Lorenteggio above all. Of course, “with an alliance between women and men of doing and saying yes, Italy in the next five years will be able to experience an industrial, infrastructural, environmental, economic and work revolution similar to the one experienced by our parents and grandparents in the second postwar. Like when they built the Autostrada del Sole: there were no committees there too, and even today, wherever I go, I find people nostalgic for the no. But if we sanction that Milan is the homeland of yes, of doing, of planning, we will be doing a great service to the country».
15 thousand workers for the Blue Line
Pietro Salini, CEO of Webuild who led the group of companies that built the infrastructure, recalled how the group has “built over 800 kilometers of subways all over the world“, but as “for a company that has its headquarters here in Milan, making the M4 (after having made all the others, ed), is a special privilege». An enterprise that has seen «15,000 people, over 1,500 at the same time, participate in the construction of the infrastructure». The M4 not only “will change how you take the plane to Milan and how you get home”, but “it will also change the exterior”, said Salini referring to the arrangement of the external spaces of the stops, recalling the interventions made at the Argonne stop before and then in San Babila.
M4: so far 700 thousand passengers. 86 million when fully operational
With today’s inauguration, the M4 has eight stops: Linate airport, Repetti, Forlanini station, Argonne, Susa, Dateo, Tricolore and San Babila. By the end of 2024 all the others that run from the center towards the east axis of Milan will open at the same time: Sforza Policlinico, Santa Sofia, Vetra, De Amicis, S. Ambrogio, Coni Zugna, California, Bolivar, Tolstoj, Frattini, Gelsomini, Segneri and St. Christopher. It will be a third and final opening structured in a single lot. Up until yesterday, when there were only six stations, «about 700,000 passengers used the line», said Arrigo Giana, CEO of Atm, «but we have a traffic hypothesis of 86 million passengers a year when fully operational. Until Dateo, the Blue Line was not connected to the rest of the underground network, from today it is, so from today we expect a significant increase in traffic». The Line «will become a very important artery, an element of basic mobility. We know that we have other projects: the extension of the M5, a study on the M6, the extension of the M4 beyond Linate: these are all projects that Milan continues to pursue in a continuous expansion of public transport».