Construction of the 31-km Tehran Metro Line 7 will be completed by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2017.
The extension of Line 1 to Imam Khomeini International Airport is also likely to be completed by that time, said Habil Darvish, managing director of Tehran Metro Company, on the sidelines of a ceremony that saw 43 new coaches added to the subway system on Monday.
Line 7 currently under construction connects the southeastern part of Tehran to the northwestern districts of the capital and 14 metro trains will run on this line, ISNA reported.
A total of 6 trains also will run between the two stations of Haram-e Motahhar (mausoleum of the late Imam Khomeini) and IKIA, located 30 km southwest of Tehran. The nearest subway station to IKIA is Harem-e Motahhar.
After completion of the two projects, the subway system will have the capacity to carry up to 9 million passengers every day from the current 3 million, he added.
Some of the 34 stations on Line 7 will be Yadegar-e-Emam, Paknejad Boulevard, Kaaj Sq., Seoul Sq., Meidan Sanat, Boostan Goft-e-Goo, Nasr, Baqerkhan, Ghazvin Sq., Chaharrah-e-Molavi, Khorasan Sq. and Basij Sq.
Darvish also said that by the end of September 2017, a total of 100 km will be added to the subway system.
At present, the subway system comprises five operational lines (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 – line 3 is not fully completed) with nearly 100 stations. Lines 6 and 7 are currently under construction.
In June, Seyed Jafar Tashakkori Hashemi, deputy mayor of Tehran for transportation said Line 6 is 50% complete and the entire project would be completed in September 2017.
Reports say 6,850 workers are working on Line 6 which has 27 metro stations along the 35 km subway. It starts from Sulqan in the northwestern Tehran and ends at Dolat-Abad neighborhood in the southeast.
Tehran Metro carries more than 3 million passengers a day. Ticket price is fixed for each journey, regardless of the distance traveled, but using prepaid tickets (in form of electronic cards) costs much less. On all Tehran metro trains the first, second and the last carriages are reserved for women. Train services start at 5:30 am and until 11 pm with one every 2-10 minutes.
