ISTANBUL (AA) - August 17, 2012 - Kadikoy-Kartal subway line opened for Istanbul residents on Friday.
"According to our calculation, we will have saved 1 billion 153 million TL for Turkey, and residents of Istanbul," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the inauguration ceremony of the new line at Kadikoy Square.
Stressing that the line would make a huge contribution to Turkish economy, Erdogan said "if Kadikoy-Kartal line was not constructed, 32 additional buses and 67 minibuses would have to run every year between Kadikoy and Kartal. However, the other way around, we are expecting withdrawal of 572 buses and 1,227 minibuses from the traffic that allow a huge relief."
The new line will be the first subway line in the Asian side of the city.
The distance between Kadikoy and Kartal will be taken in 32 minutes with the new subway line, and it will have 16 stops.
It's capacity is daily 700,000 passengers.
In 2005, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan had given a start for digging of the tunnel for Kadikoy-Kartal subway line.
Istanbul's Mayor Kadir Topbas had stated on Thursday in an advertisement on several newspapers that in 2014, they projected to carry 5 million passengers with a 230 kilometers line, expecting the number of passengers to increase to 7 million in 2016.
According to census in 2011, Istanbul had a population of 13,624,000.
