The A13 motorway will not reopen on May 1

The A13 motorway will “probably” not reopen on May 1, Le Figaro learned this Friday from a source close to the matter, confirming information from Le Parisien. The cracked part at the origin of the section would still have moved but “not alarmingly” and additional microcracks were even observed at the level of the hydraulic structure which is located underground.

Work must be done this weekend and return of analysis results are still awaited “in order to determine a reopening date”, specifies our source. “We’re talking about a few days’ delay,” she adds.

The motorway, which links Paris to Normandy, has been closed between the capital's ring road and Vaucresson since April 18, when cracks were discovered in the roadway between the tunnel and the Saint-Cloud viaduct. With a depth of 50 cm to 80 cm depending on the location, these cracks had also reached the sanitation work buried 4 meters under the road. The fault is a movement of the ground following the “displacement of the retaining wall” located on one of the sides of the highway. Backfilling has already been carried out and reinforced monitoring was put in place to confirm the stabilization of the ground, before carrying out the repair work.

The authorities had feared disruptions on the roads, especially the weekend following the closure with Ile-de-France residents returning from vacation, and called on motorists to postpone their trip or take alternative routes. The president of the region Valérie Pécresse had asked the State to take charge of making the A14 free of charge to allow an alternative route, without success. Despite some difficulties on the transfer routes, the closure of the A13 has generally not caused huge traffic jams in the region. But its reopening is impatiently awaited by regulars, tired of having to make detours to avoid the closed section of road.