Istanbul Mayor expresses high expectations from Marmaray tunnel project

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

The mayor also shared his expectations about the Marmaray, before Istanbul’s massive rail tunnel project’s inauguration on Oct. 29. aa PHOTO

Istanbul Mayor says they allocated all sources of the city into metro investments while the countdown for the inauguration of the grand tunnel project Marmaray begins.

“We have tasks as large as we can dub as mobilization for the metro, the best transportation axis of a developed city, to come into play,” Kadir Topbaş, mayor of Turkey’s largest city with a population more than 14 million, said Oct. 21, responding to reporters’ questions after Vodafone’s Istanbul Marathon presentation meeting. 

The mayor, who appears to have secured his nomination for a third term as the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Istanbul candidate for the March 2014 local elections, claimed Istanbul will be a whole different city than it is today with geared up metro investments.

Recalling the plans of extending the Istanbul metro capacity to 11 million by 2019, Topbaş said the municipality has “loosened its purse’s strings.”

The mayor also shared his expectations about the Marmaray, before Istanbul’s massive rail tunnel project’s inauguration on Oct. 29.

“We’re witnessing history as people living today. While creating a transportation axis between the east and west points of the city, I believe it will soothe the problem of bridges with 150,000 passenger capacity per hour,” he said, stressing the city needs such passage alternatives, such as the rail road to pass through the third Istanbul bridge, the construction of which has begun this year.

Also touching upon the congestion at the bus terminal during Eid al-Ahda, the Sacrifice of the Feast, holiday, the mayor admitted the two terminals currently operating in Istanbul are not enough and they are working on the plans to create new spaces.