ANKARA
An Ankara Metro line that opened today was the first of three opening this year, Turkey's Transport Minister Lutfi Elvan said during the opening ceremony on Wednesday.
Elvan said when the all the lines begin operating, Turkey's capital Ankara will have a subway system capable of transporting 1.2 million people per day.
The new subway line, the construction of which began in February 2012, is 15.5 kilometers long and has 11 stations and will take a total of 35 minutes to travel.
The line links two populous suburbs in the capital’s west and southwest and was originally opened in 2001 but taken over by the Transport Ministry in 2012 because of a lack of funding from the Ankara Municipality.
The Ankara Metro was put into operation in 1996. The total length of subway lines in Turkey's capital is 60.4 kilometers. With the addition of new subway projects, the subway line length is expected to reach nearly 70 kilometers in Ankara.
