Work on Marmara Sea tunnel starts at Istanbul

BBC Worldwide Monitoring, March 24, 2007 Saturday

Source: Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 24 Mar 07

Istanbul, 24 March: First tube of Marmaray Project, which will connect Asia and Europe to each other under Marmara Sea, was submerged under the sea on Saturday [24 March].

Ender Kurt, chairman of Istanbul Port and Marmaray Sea Working Group, said that the tube E-11 was submerged at 6.30 p.m. today.

Noting that 13 divers are still under the sea to fix the tube on its place, Kurt said that the tube was submerged 32 meters under the sea.

Project

The « Marmaray » project includes construction of a Marmaray Rail Tube Tunnel and Commuter Rail Mass Transit System in Istanbul. The project provides an upgrading of the commuter rail system in Istanbul, connecting Halkali on the European side with Gebze on the Asian side with an uninterrupted, modern, high-capacity commuter rail system. Railway tracks in both sides of Istanbul Strait will be connected to each other through a railway tunnel connection under the Istanbul Strait. The line goes underground at Yedikule, continues through the Yenikapi and Sirkeci new underground stations, passes under the Istanbul Strait, connects to the Uskudar new underground station and emerges at Sogutlucesme.

This project is one of the major transportation infrastructure projects in the world. The entire upgraded and new railway system will be approximately 76 km long. The main structures and systems include the immersed tube tunnel, bored tunnels, cut-and-cover tunnels, at-grade structures, three new underground stations, 37 surface stations (renovation and upgrading), operations control centre, yards, workshops, maintenance facilities, upgrading of existing tracks including a new third track on ground, completely new electrical and mechanical systems and procurement of modern railway vehicles.

Third greatest project of Turkey

Marmaray Rail Tube Tunnel project is the third greatest project of Turkey, with a budget of 5.08bn Turkish liras (1 Turkish liras is approximately 1.4 US dollars). The sum of 543m Turkish liras was spent in 2006 and another 212m Turkish liras will be spent this year on the project which is expected to be finished by 2009.