Turkey’s biggest metropolis Istanbul is getting two new subway lines, totaling 12.9 kilometers (8 miles), the transport and infrastructure minister announced Monday.
The first will be established in the Üsküdar district on the city’s Asian side and will span between the neighborhoods of Altunizade and Çamlıca, Adil Karaismailoğlu told a ceremony in Istanbul.
The Altunizade-Ferah-Çamlıca will be a 4.5-kilometer subway system project.
Üsküdar is home to Turkey’s first fully automated subway system. The Üsküdar-Çekmeköy line is 20 kilometers long and has 16 stops.
The district is also included in the Marmaray, an underwater rail system beneath the Bosporus connecting the Asian and European sides of Istanbul.
Estimated to be approximately 8.4 kilometers long, the other line will connect the Kazlıçeşme and Sirkeci neighborhoods on the European side, Karaismailoğlu said.
The total length of lines in Istanbul is currently 251 kilometers. It will eventually reach 342 kilometers once the ongoing projects are completed, the minister noted. Half of the length will have been commissioned by the ministry, he added.
Another metro line, M7, stretching from the central Mecidiyeköy quarter to Mahmutbey, was commissioned last October.
Works are currently ongoing on six lines, the minister said, including the Pendik-Tavşantepe-Sabiha Gökçen Airport line on the Asian side, and the Bakırköy-Kirazlı, Başakşehir-Kayaşehir, Gayrettepe-Istanbul Airport and Halkalı-Istanbul Airport lines on the European side of the city.
The high-speed metro line connecting the heart of Turkey’s metropolis to the mega Istanbul Airport is scheduled to be completed by end of this year, Karaismailoğlu said.
The line will whisk passengers from Gayrettepe, in Şişli on Istanbul’s European side, to the airport in just 35 minutes.
The subway will stretch 37.5 kilometers, include nine stations and will be the country’s fastest metro line, operating at a speed of 120 kph (75 mph).
The 31.5-kilometer Halkalı-Istanbul Airport line is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, the minister noted.
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) last month also said new subway lines would be commissioned in the coming years.
One of the lines will reportedly start from the Beylikdüzü district on the European side of the city and end on the Anatolian side's Pendik district, covering a total distance of 72 kilometers.
The subway is expected to reduce the time length between the two locations to an hour.
Named HIZRAY, of which the tender bid is expected to take place in 2021, the line will reach a speed of up to 80 kph.