M4, the San Babila stop opens: from the center of Milan to Linate in 12 minutes

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Dig among the buildings. Create 30m deep canyons in the city centre. Moving underground lightly, among the foundations of historic buildings, electric cables, plumbing pipes, cellars, basements, garages, crossing other subway lines. Build tunnels even deeper than standard. This too is M4, the new Milan underground line (blue line), which today is celebrating an important advance: the inauguration of the San Babila station, located about halfway along the route. M4 is a work that shortens not only the distances in the city, but also those between the ancient heart of Milan and Europe: it will take just 12 minutes to reach San Babila from Linate airport.

The sixth largest metro network in Europe

When completed in December 2024, the line (15 kilometers long with 21 stations) will allow crossing the historic center of the city in just 30 minutes, connecting the eastern quadrant (Linate) with the western quadrant, up to the San Cristoforo railway station . The new line is built with driverless technology (without a driver), and is therefore fully automated, so as to allow for a very close frequency of trains. With the completion of M4, the Milan underground network will reach 118 kilometres, making it the sixth largest in Europe.

The consortium led by Webuild

Since its design, the M4, financed with public-private participation and built by a consortium of companies led by Webuild (formerly Salini Impregilo), has been conceived favoring the constant participation of citizens. In recent years, tens of thousands of people have attended the numerous open days organized to open the doors of future stations to citizens. This is how, from neighborhood committees to representatives of the manufacturing world and individual citizens, the M4 project remained available to anyone who wanted to have their say, present a proposal, raise a criticism or concern. Some of the decisions taken to minimize the impact of the construction site on citizens fall into this line, such as the disposal of the earth excavated from the tunnels using underground conveyor belts instead of resorting to the use of trucks in the city centre; or again the collaboration with the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape, activated to enhance the finds found during the excavation phase and then put on display at the Archaeological Museum of Milan. Some monuments have been moved to avoid any risk in the passage of the tmb (the excavator cutter). These are the distinctive features of what, not surprisingly, has been called the citizens’ metro, a work that intends to give value to citizens, not only from the moment of its inauguration, but also during the construction phase.