The Expert Commission for the Construction of the Belgrade Metro held its first meeting yesterday and concluded that Belgrade was ready for a metro.
A task of the Commission will be to agree all suggestions and ideas with the French side in order to adapt this form of public transport to the needs and capacities of the capital city.
As it was said, Belgrade may get the first line, which should go from Ustanicka street in Vozdovac to Tvornicka street in Zemun, in six to seven years, and the Expert Commission will take care of technical aspects of the design of a study and a preliminary project for the first line of the Belgrade metro.
– Our task will be to adapt all suggestions for the metro construction to the capacities and needs of Belgrade in order for the capital city to get an appropriate metro. The project will contain the best solutions and technologies currently available – said Assistant Mayor Dejan Vasovic who is also the president of the Expert Commission.
This authority will have another four members: engineers from the Directorate for Building Land – Zoran Rubinjoni and Vladimir Depolo, as well as world-renowned experts Vukan Vucic, professor at the University in Pennsylvania and the chief adviser for the construction of the metro in San Francisco, Washington, Manchester, Edmunton, Rome, Beijing and Guadalahara, and Gradimir Stefanovic, adviser for the construction of the metro system in Turin, Rome, Shangai, London, Riyadh, Heliopolis, Cairo, Sankt Peterburg and Tel Aviv.
– In the 1950’s, only 20 cities in the world had a metro system, whereas today 120 cities have such system. Metro is one of the largest investments a city can make, which is why it is very important to carefully plan each step in its construction because every mistake costs a lot – said professor Vucic.
According to the words of Gradimir Stefanovic, the capital city can use more solutions and modern technologies in the construction of a metro than the cities in the sixties and seventies could. He also said that the real partner was chosen for that job because “France is famous for the construction of metros, and so is the company Egis.”
The French architectural company Egis Rail will work on the Feasibility Study and the project for the first metro line, and it will be given 15 months to finish that job.
