CHILE: President Gabriel Boric has inaugurated a 5·2 km extension of Santiago metro Line 2. The four-station section at the south end of the route takes Line 2 from La Cisterna to Hospital El Pino, and it has been built at a cost of US$409·2m.
Opened on November 28, the extension serves a catchment area of 618 000 people in the districts of La Cisterna, El Bosque and San Bernardo. It is expected to add 32 000 passengers per weekday to the Line 2 ridership.
Alstom has provided signalling and automation technology for the extension and it is also to be maintaining the electronic interlockings serving the new section and an associated depot located in the Vespucio Norte area.
‘When we develop a new line, we would like to include particular services to improve the conditions of the area, we therefore have plans to introduce more ATMs and shops inside our stations’, Metro de Santiago General Manager Felipe Bravo told Metro Report International in May. ‘There are neighbourhoods in Santiago where unfortunately security is an issue, and because of that there are no ATMs at all. The offering from local shops and business is also very limited as a result; the extension of Line 2 serves this kind of area.’
Denis Girault, Managing Director of Alstom in Chile, welcomed the opening, adding that ‘we continue to contribute to intelligent and high-standard mobility for the Santiago metro, something we have done since its inception, almost 50 years ago’.
- Subscribers can read an interview with Felipe Bravo, General Manager of Metro de Santiago, from the August 2023 issue of Railway Gazette International.
