ANKARA - A ceremony will take place on May 9 to mark start of construction of system which will connect Istanbul's Asian and European sides with an immersed tube tunnel under the Istanbul Strait.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the ceremony, sources said on Thursday.
Construction of the system was undertaken by a consortium of Turkish and Japanese companies. Construction of Turkey's first railway tube crossing is envisaged to finish until 2008. Construction of tube crossing will be financed by a 86.8 billion U.S. dollars loan obtained from the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC). Meanwhile, nearly 700 million U.S. dollars loan will be used to finance construction of its commuter connections.
The project called ''Marmaray'' includes a 13.3 km Istanbul Strait crossing and the upgrade of 63 km of suburb line to create a 76.3 km high capacity line between Gebze and Halkali. The Istanbul Strait crossing will be done by a 1.8 km earthquake-proof immersed tube, assembled from 18 sections. This tube will be accessed by bored tunnels from Yenikapi on the European side and Sogutlucesme on the Asian side of Istanbul. Intermediate stations will be done at Sirkeci and Uskudar. An interchange station with Istanbul metro and light rail will be built at Yenikapi.
The upgrade of the suburb lines requires the laying of a third track along most of the way to increase the line capacity up to 75.000 passengers per hour in each direction. Signaling must also be modernized to allow 2 minutes headway service. The 41 stations along the line will be refurbished and the platform lengthened to 180 m.
(MS-AÖ) 06.05.2004