Entreprise du Métro d’Alger has selected an Alstom-led consortium for a €225m turnkey contract to build the city’s first light rail line (RG 4.06 p176). Construction of the 16·3 km route with 30 stops is expected to take 30 months. Serving the eastern part of the Algerian capital, the route is expected to carry an average of 150000 passengers/day.
Metro do Porto has ordered a further 30 light rail vehicles from a consortium of Bombardier Transportation and Vossloh-Kiepe for €115m. The bi-directional Flexity Swift cars are due for delivery in 2008-09. May 27 saw the opening of the 1·6 km airport branch and the launch of Line E services from there to the city centre.
Ceremonies were held at the site of the future False Creek station on June 12 to mark the start of tunnel boring work on the Canada Line automated metro in Vancouver (MR06 p47). Twin bored tunnels 2·5 km long will run under False Creek and north along Granville Street to Dunsmuir in the city centre. The TBM is expected to complete the first bore by April 2007 and the second between June 2007 and March 2008.
Tianjin Metro Chairman Guo Huaizhi officially inaugurated the city’s reconstructed Line 1 in a ceremony on June 12. Now extended to serve 22 stations, the line is expected to carry up to 2 million passengers/day.
Canadian Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon announced the start of work on a C$47m upgrading programme for the Stouffville line of Toronto’s GO Transit commuter rail network on May 25. To be completed by the end of 2007, the work includes grade separation of the junction between GO Transit and CN’s main east-west freight corridor at Markham.
