The first metro line on the Asian side of Istanbul was officially inaugurated Friday by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kadir Topbas, the Mayor of Istanbul
The Line M4 links Kadikoy station, near the proposed Istanbul 2020 “Port Cluster” of Olympic venues, with Kartal, 22 km further south, and has a capacity of 70,000 passengers per hour per direction.
Istanbul 2020 bid leader Hasan Arat said, “this Metro opening reflects the pledge made in the Istanbul 2020 application file that the Istanbul municipality aims to connect its citizens with a world-class, fully modernized transport network. $1.2 billion a year is being spent on improvements to Istanbul’s transport infrastructure that will help guarantee average journey times for Olympic athletes of just 20 minutes in 2020.
“This new line will also alleviate traffic congestion on the Asian side and improve the comfort and journey time of hundreds of thousands of spectators attending sports events at our proposed iconic Olympic venues on the Bosporus”.
The new line will initially carry around 700,000 passengers per day.
Ugur Erdener, International Olympic Committee (IOC) member and President of the NOC of Turkey said, “the success of London 2012 was due, in part, to an efficient integrated public network for spectators, the Olympic family, as well as the host city residents. It is exciting to think that this new Line M4 could well be carrying Olympic passengers for Turkey’s first ever Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020”.
