RO Govt. abandons plans to extend Bucharest subway line to the airport

The Romanian Government's public procurement office (ANAP) rejected the documents drafted to extend Bucharest's subway line M6 from Baneasa to Otopeni, where the city's main airport is located.

Furthermore, transport minister Catalin Drula has repeatedly argued in favor of using the resources to complete the M5 subway line, which crosses Bucharest west to east, instead of financing the extension of the M6 line to Otopeni, Economica.net reported.

The region toward the airport is not densely populated, and the ridership would not justify such an expensive project, Drula argued.

When he was in opposition, Drula said that the Otopeni Metro project is a "white elephant".

"I mean, it's very expensive, it's in a low-density area, and it's not very economical. It's more like a 'white elephant' project, which is a very big investment that doesn't pay off and stays unused," the USR deputy Catalin Drula said in the past. Unlike the Baneasa-Otopeni section, the project for the section of M6 that links Baneasa to the subway network goes ahead.

"The procurement procedure for the design and execution of the section between 1 May station (existing) and Tokyo (in Baneasa) is in progress, and the technical tenders are under review. Unless the procedure is challenged, the execution contract will be signed in the second quarter of this year," the subway operator Metrorex says.

(Photo: Andrei Gabriel Stanescu/ Dreamstime)