BELGIUM: Test running has started on the north-south tram route in Liège, which is now expected to open on January 31 2025, around three years later than envisaged.
The 11·7 km line connecting Coronmeuse and Liège-Expo with Sclessin-Standard via Place St Lambert and Guillemins is being built by the Tram’Ardent consortium of Colas, CAF and the Dutch Infrastructure Fund under a design-build-maintain concession now due to run until 2052. Services will be run by regional transport operator OTW.
A first run was undertaken on August 21, with the Urbos tram moving at walking pace and accompanied by safety officials. The vehicle ran from the depot, via Feronstrée, to a stop in front of the town hall, where it was officially welcomed by the mayor of Liège, Willy Demeyer. It then continued to Place Général Leman and back.
Testing is expected to ramp up over the coming months, culminating in a period of full operations without passengers, ahead of the public opening. Official projections envisage that the line will carry 90 000 passengers/day, but commentators suggest this may be optimistic.
Cost over-run
According to figures published by the European Investment Bank, the project was originally budgeted at €558m. DIF is contributing €429m, including an EIB loan of €193m, with other funding coming from Belfius, AG Insurance, Nataxis, another French bank and Spanish bank BBVA.
However, Colas Belgium ran into financial problems due to the Covid pandemic and rising costs, and had to seek financial support from parent company Bouygues. It threatened to walk away from the tram project, but following mediation the Wallonnie regional government agreed to contribute €79m to compensate for the extra costs, subject to strict timing conditions, and to increase the annual availability payment to the concessionaires to €32 m/year until 2052.
The total cost of the 17 km project including two planned extensions has been reported by local media at around €1·4bn, or €82m per km.
Extensions curtailed
Following long deliberations, the regional government, comprised of the PS (Socialist), Ecolo (Greens) and MR (Liberal) parties, earlier this year approved proposals for the long-planned extensions. One would run north for 2·9 km from Coronmeuse to Bonne Campagne via Herstal, and the other south by 3·2 km from Standard to Seraing and Gare de Jemeppe.
Rather than adding the extensions to the PPP concession, the government instructed OTW to procure the works directly from local contractors. Total cost of the additional 6·1 km has been estimated at €335m against a reported budget of €115m.
However, the general elections on June 9 saw a change of control in Wallonnie. The Ecolo vote collapsed, and MR became the largest party. A new regional government was formed by MR with Engages (Christian Democrats), displacing PS and Ecolo.
The new administration inherited severe budget problems, which are not as bad as Brussels but worse than Vlaanderen. With deficits heading for 6% of GDP against an EU norm of 3%, budget cuts seemed inevitable. After reviewing the cost and revenue projections, OTW indicated that it was concerned about potentially unquantified increases in the cost of the two extensions, which could instead be operated by buses.
In the light of this, the government confirmed on August 21 that the extensions would not go ahead.
Preliminary work had reportedly been about to get underway, even though the contracts had not been finalised. The mayors of Liège and Seraing both expressed disappointment with the decision, although there has been no comment from Herstal.
