Sofia Secures Funding for Twelve New Metro Stations on Planned Third Line

Business | August 14, 2015, Friday // 09:44
Bulgaria: Sofia Secures Funding for Twelve New Metro Stations on Planned Third Line Construction works on the extension of the second metro line are ongoing. Photo: Bulgarian News Agency

The Bulgarian capital has secured funding for the construction of twelve new stations on the projected third line of the underground.

This was announced by the director of the municipal company Metropolitan Stoyan Bratoev, who together with the mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova inspected the construction of the Vitosha station in the Hladilnika neighbourhood on Thursday.

The public procurement procedure on the construction of eight new stations and the purchase of twenty new trains was launched on Thursday.

The candidates and their offers will be later announced at the website of Metropolitan, daily Dnevnik informs.

The financing will be provided from the Operational Programme Transport and co-funding from Bulgarian authorities.

Bratoev stated that Fandakova also managed to negotiate funding from the Council of Ministers for the other four stations.

The director of the underground expressed hope that all public procurement procedures will be completed by the spring and added that an auction for the purchase of another ten trains is foreseen.

In 2019, the construction of twelve new stations with a total length of twelve kilometres is foreseen.

Fandakova announced that the Vitosha station, which is located on the extension of the second metro line reaching to the mall on the Cherni Vrah boulevard will be ready by August 2016 at the latest.

The traffic on the boulevard will be restored in September, with the last layer of asphalt to be placed in the spring next year.

The cost of the section is BGN 42.37 M, with the funding to be provided from both the 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 programme periods of the Operational Programme Transport.

The forecast is that with the opening of the new section, the number of passengers will increase by 25 000 people.

In the spring, the number of passengers on a daily basis was between 320 000 and 330 000, while their number is slightly under 320 000 in the summer due to the holiday period.

It is expected that the number of passengers in the autumn will increase to 350 000 people.

The aim of Metropolitan is with the opening of the twelve new stations on the third line, the number of passengers to increase to more than half a million.

If this goal is fulfilled, this means that the underground passengers will constitute 35 % of the traffic in Sofia in 2019.

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Tags: Bulgaria, sofia, underground, metro, Yordanka Fandakova, Stoyan Bratoev, station, public procurement, transport, traffic

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