New metro line inaugurated
21 May 2014Cairo inaugurated the second phase of metro Line 3 on 7 May when Egypt's president Adly Mansour, prime minister Ibrahim Mahlib and transport minister Ibrahim El Demeiri officially opened the 7.7km eastern section between Abbasiya and Haroun El Rachid station in the district of Heliopolis.
The USD 1.7bn five-station extension is expected to increase daily ridership on Line 3 to around 600,000 passengers. Civil works on the project were carried out by a French consortium of Vinci Construction and Bouygues Travaux Publics with Egyptian partners Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors. Construction started in 2009 and was completed five months ahead of schedule. One earth-pressure balance tunnel boring machine and one slurry TBM were used.
The initial 4.3km five-station section of Line 3 between Abbasiya and an interchange with Line 2 at Attaba opened in February 2012, and when all stages are complete the line will be 34km long stretching from the city's international airport in the east to Mohandiseen and Embaba in Giza in the west.
In September 2012, Egypt's government signed a EUR 940M (USD 1.3bn) loan agreement with the Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency) and the European Investment Bank to help fund the third phase, which will be 18km long western extension with 15 stations.
Line 3 is the first metro line in the city to be served by automatic trains. Seven additional eight-car trains have been acquired from Mitsubishi for phase 2.
A sprawling metropolis with well over 16 million inhabitants, according to latest figures, Greater Cairo has for years wrestled with a growing traffic congestion problem.
