Sofia begins construction of metro extension to Business Park
Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev and Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova attended the ceremony on April 25 marking the official start of construction of the metro extension to Business Park Sofia.
The total cost of the project is 86 million leva, with 79 million leva coming from European Union’s operational programme for transport. The 2.7km extension will feature three new metro stations and will be built by two separate consortiums, in order to speed up work.
The deadline for completing the extension is April 25 2015, but Fandukova said that all efforts will be made to finish work by the end of 2014.
By adding three more stations, Sofia’s metro network will service an additional 32 000 passengers a day. It is also expected to cut down traffic in the Mladost residential borough by one quarter, or about 6000 cars, reducing greenhouse emissions by about 4000 tonnes a year, Fandukova said.
The construction will require temporary traffic restrictions on the Alexander Malinov Boulevard in the vicinity of the Business Park Sofia, which will be lifted only when work on the expansion is completed.
The metro network in the Bulgarian capital city currently has two lines – the extension to Business Park Sofia is on the older Line 1. Another extension of the same line to the Sofia Airport is already under way, due to be completed in early 2015.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
